Sometimes it seems that the number of books on the Canadian Arctic must outnumber the people who live there. For centuries, tales from the northern latitudes have fascinated armchair explorers in southern Canada and around the world. Many of the published works focus on the search for the Northwest Passage—the famous lost expedition of John Franklin has been chronicled in many books—and events such as the Klondike gold rush and the construction of the Alaska Highway have attracted writers as diverse as Robert Service, Jack London, and Pierre Berton. First-person accounts abound, with volumes produced by missionaries, police officers, scientists, government officials, prospectors, and adventurers. More recently, aboriginal writers have joined the ranks of Arctic authors, their descriptions of changing northern life finding audiences inside and outside the region. Academics have done their share to bring the northern regions to the nation’s attention. The foundational work of Morris Zaslow provided an outline of the history of the region and a base for much subsequent writing. Shelagh Grant’s detailed studies of sovereignty issues, books by political scientists Gurston Dacks, Franklyn Griffiths, and Mark Dickerson, and contributions by scholars such as Sherrill Grace, I.S. McLaren, William Wonders, Robert Bone, and others have added immeasurably to our understanding of the post-Confederation North. Two academics, Michael Byers and Rob Huebert, have been particularly active and provocative in their contributions to the contemporary debates about Arctic sovereignty. The national attention to books on the Arctic, and about Arctic sovereignty, illustrates the nature of Canadian concern about the region and an ongoing effort to come to grips with Canada’s northern responsibilities. The list of books below will provide the reader with an introduction to the main currents in academic and public debate about the Canadian North.
Abel, K.M., and K. Coates. Northern Visions: New Perspectives on the North in Canadian History. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2001.
Abele, Frances. “Canadian Contradictions: Forty Years of Northern Political Development,” Arctic 40/4 (December 1987): 310-20.
Abele, Frances, and Thierry Rodon. “Inuit Diplomacy in the Global Era: The Strengths of Multilateral Internationalism,” Canadian Foreign Policy 13/3 (2007): 45-64.
Amundsen, Roald. The North West Passage. London: Constable, 1908.
Arctic Institute of North America. Information North. Fall 1986. Special issue on militarization of the North.
Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP), Arctic Pollution Issues: A State of the Arctic Environment Report. Oslo: AMAP, 1997.
Aronsen, Lawrence R. “American National Security and the Defense of the Northern Frontier, 1945-51,” Canadian Review of American Studies 14/3 (Fall 1983). 259-77.
Bankes, Nigel D. “Forty Years of Canadian Sovereignty Assertion in the Arctic, 1947-87,” Arctic 40/4 (December 1987): 292-99.
Bastedo, Jamie. Shield Country: Life and Times of the Oldest Piece of the Planet. Calgary: Arctic Institute of North America, 1994.
Bercuson, David J. “Continental Defense and Arctic Security, 1945-50: Solving the Canadian Dilemma,” in The Cold War and Defense, eds. K. Neilson and R.G. Haycock (New York: Praeger, 1990): 153-70.
———. True Patriot: The Life of Brooke Claxton, 1898-1960. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993.
Berger, Thomas R. Northern Frontier/Northern Homeland: The Report of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, vol. 1. Ottawa: Department of Supply and Services, 1977.
———, ed. The Arctic: Choices for Peace and Security. Vancouver: Gordon Soules, 1989.
Berton, Pierre. Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1972.
———. The Arctic Grail: The Quest for the Northwest Passage and the North Pole, 1818-1909. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1988.
Bockstoce, J.R. Steam Whaling in the Western Arctic. New Bedford: Old Dartmouth Historical Society, 1977.
Bone, Robert. The Geography of the Canadian North: Issues and Challenges. Toronto: Oxford, 1992.
Bray, E.F. A Frenchman in Search of Franklin. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.
Briggs, Philip J. “The Polar Sea Voyage and the Northwest Passage Dispute,” Armed Forces & Society 16/3 (1990): 437-52.
Brody, Hugh, Maps and Dreams. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1981.
———. The Living Arctic. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1987.
Byers, Michael. Intent for a Nation: What Is Canada For? Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2007.
Caldwell, Nathanial F. Arctic Leverage: Canadian Sovereignty and Security. New York: Praeger, 1990.
Canada. Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. The Northern Dimension of Canada’s Foreign Policy. 1998.
Canada. House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Canada and the Circumpolar World: Meeting the Challenges of Cooperation into the Twenty-First Century. April 1997.
Canada. Government Response to Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade Report “Canada and the Circumpolar World: Meeting the Challenges of Cooperation Into the Twenty-First Century.” 1998.
Coates, K.S. The Alaska Highway: Papers of the 40th Anniversary Symposium. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1985.
———. Canada’s Colonies: A History of the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Toronto: James Lorimer, 1985.
Coates, K.S., and Judith Powell. Canada’s Colonies: A History of the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Toronto: James Lorimer, 1985.
Coates, K.S., and W.R. Morrison, eds. For Purposes of Dominion: Essays in Honour of Morris Zaslow. Toronto: Captus University Press, 1989.
———. Interpreting Canada’s North: Selected Readings. Toronto: Copp Clark, 1989.
———. The Alaska Highway in World War II: The American Army of Occupation in Canada’s Northwest. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.
———. The Forgotten North. Toronto: James Lorimer, 1992.
———. Land of the Midnight Sun: A History of the Yukon. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005.
Cody, H.A. An Apostle of the North: Memoirs of the Right Reverend William Carpenter Bompas, DD. Toronto: Musson, 1908.
Cohen, Maxwell. “The Arctic and the National Interest,” International Journal 26/1 (1970-71): 52-81.
Conant, Melvin. The Long Polar Watch: Canada and the Defence of North America. New York: Harper, 1962.
Dacks, Gurston. A Choice of Futures. Toronto: Methuen, 1981.
Daniels, Roy. Alexander Mackenzie and the North West. London: Faber and Faber, 1969.
Dawson, G.M. Report on an Exploration in the Yukon District, N.W.T. and Adjacent Northern Portion of British Columbia, 1887. Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1888.
Dickerson, Mark. Whose North? Political Change, Political Development, and Self-Government in the Northwest Territories. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1992.
Diubaldo, R.J. Stefansson and the Canadian Arctic. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1978.
Dosman, Edgar. The National Interest. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1975.
———. Sovereignty and Security in the Arctic. London: Routledge, 1989.
———, ed. The Arctic in Question. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1976.
Downie, David L., and Terry Fenge. Northern Lights Against POPs: Combatting Toxic Threats in the Arctic. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003.
Duffy, R. Quinn. The Road to Nunavut: The Progress of Eastern Arctic Inuit since the Second World War. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988.
Dziuban, Stanley W. Military Relations Between the United States and Canada 1939-1945. Washington: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1959.
Elliot-Meisel, Elizabeth B. Arctic Diplomacy: Canada and the United States in the Northwest Passage. New York: Peter Lang, 1998.
———. “Still unresolved after fifty years: the Northwest Passage in Canadian-American relations, 1946-1998,” The American Review of Canadian Studies 29/3 (Fall 1999): 407-30.
Eyre, Kenneth C. “Custos Borealis: The Military in the Canadian North.” Ph.D. thesis, University of London-King’s College, 1981.
———. “Forty Years of Military Activity in the Canadian North, 1947-87,” Arctic 40:4 (December 1987): 292-99.
Fagan, Brian M. The Great Journey: The Peopling of North America. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1987.
Fairley, T.C. Sverdrup’s Arctic Adventures. London: Longmans, 1959.
Finnie, O.S. Canada Moves North. Toronto: Macmillan, 1942.
Francis, Daniel. Discovery of the North: The Exploration of Canada. Edmonton: Hurtig, 1986.
Freuchen, Peter. Book of the Eskimos. Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Crest, 1961.
Fumoleau, René. As Long as This Land Shall Last: A History of Treaties 8 and 11. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973.
Geiger, John, and Owen Beattie. Frozen in Time: Unlocking the Secrets of the Franklin Expedition. Saskatoon: Western Producer, 1988.
———. Dead Silence: The Greatest Mystery in Arctic Discovery. Toronto: Viking, 1993.
Grace, Sherrill. Canada and the Idea of North. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001.
Grant, Shelagh. Sovereignty or Security?: Government Policy in the Canadian North, 1936-1950. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1988.
———. Arctic Justice: On Trial for Murder, Pond Inlet, 1923. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002.
Green, Lewis. The Gold Hustlers. Vancouver: J.J. Douglas, 1972.
Griffiths, Franklyn. Arctic Alternatives: Civility or Militarism in the Circumpolar North? Toronto: Science for Peace/Samuel Stevens, 1992.
———. A Northern Foreign Policy. Toronto: Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA), 1979.
———. “The Shipping News: Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty Not on Thinning Ice,” International Journal 58/2 (Spring 2003): 257-82.
———, ed. Politics of the Northwest Passage. Kingston & Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1987.
Hamelin, L.-E. Canadian Nordicity: It’s Your North Too. trans. W. Barr. Montreal: Harvest House, 1978.
Hamilton, John D. Arctic Revolution: Social Change in the Northwest Territories, 1935-1994. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1994.
Head, Ivan L. “Canadian Claims to Territorial Sovereignty in the Arctic Regions,” McGill Law Journal 9 (1963): 200-26.
Henderson, Alicia. Nunavut: Rethinking Political Culture. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2007.
Hesketh, Bob, ed. Three Northern Wartime Projects. Edmonton: Canadian Circumpolar Institute, 1996.
Holmes, Douglas. Northerners: Profiles of People in the Northwest Territories. Toronto: James Lorimer, 1989.
Honderick, John. Arctic Imperatives: Is Canada Losing the North? Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987.
Horn, Bernd. “Gateway to Invasion or the Curse of Geography? The Canadian Arctic and the Question of Security, 1939-1999,” in Forging a Nation: Perspectives on the Canadian Military Experience, ed. Bernd Horn. St. Catharines: Vanwell, 2002: 307-32.
Huebert, Rob. “Steel, Ice and Decision-Making: The Voyage of the Polar Sea and Its Aftermath.” Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Dalhousie University, 1994.
———. “Polar Vision or Tunnel Vision: The Making of Canadian Arctic Waters Policy,” Marine Policy 19/4 (1995): 343-63.
———. “New Directions in Circumpolar Cooperation: Canada, the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy, and the Arctic Council,” Canadian Foreign Policy 5/2 (1998): 37-58.
———. “Canadian Arctic Security Issues: Transformation in the Post–Cold War Era,” International Journal 54/2 (1999): 203-29.
———. “Climate Change and Canadian Sovereignty in the Northwest Passage,” Isuma (Winter 2001): 86-94.
———. “A Northern Foreign Policy: The Politics of Ad Hocery,” in Diplomatic Departures: The Conservative Era in Canadian Foreign Policy, 1984-93, eds. N. Michaud and K.R. Nossal. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2001: 84-112.
———. “The Shipping News Part II: How Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty is on thinning ice,” International Journal (Summer 2003): 295-308.
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), An Integrated Arctic Strategy. January 2008.
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) and Inuit Circumpolar Council (Canada), Building Inuit Nunaat: The Inuit Action Plan. 2006.
Jenness, Diamond. Eskimo Administration II: Canada. Montreal: Arctic Institute of North America, 1964.
Jenness, Stuart, ed. Arctic Odyssey: The Diary of Diamond Jenness. Ottawa: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1991.
Jockel, Joseph. No Boundaries Upstairs: Canada, the United States, and the Origins of North American Air Defence, 1945-1958. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1987.
Johnston, V. Kenneth. “Canada’s Title to the Arctic Island,” Canadian Historical Review, 14 (1933): 24-41.
Jull, Peter. “Canada, Arctic Peoples, and International Affairs.” Behind the Headlines 45/6 (July/August 1988): 1-14.
Karamanski, Theodore. Fur Trade and Exploration: Opening the Far Northwest, 1821-1852. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1978.
Kirkey, Christopher. “The Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Initiatives: Canada’s Response to an American Challenge,” International Journal of Canadian Studies 13 (Spring 1996), 41-59.
———. “Smoothing Troubled Waters: The 1988 Canada–United States Arctic Co-operation Agreement,” International Journal 50 (1995): 401-26.
Kirton, John, and Don Munton. “Protecting the Canadian Arctic: The Manhattan Voyages, 1969-1970,” in Canadian Foreign Policy: Selected Cases, eds. Kirton and Munton. Toronto: Prentice-Hall, 1992: 206-21.
Lackenbauer, P. Whitney. “The Canadian Rangers: A Postmodern Militia That Works.” Canadian Military Journal 6/4 (Winter 2005-6): 49-60.
———. “Right and Honourable: Mackenzie King, Canadian-American Bilateral Relations, and Canadian Sovereignty in the Northwest, 1943-1948,” in Mackenzie King: Citizenship and Community, eds. John English, Kenneth McLaughlin, and P.W. Lackenbauer. Toronto: Robin Brass Studios, 2002: 151-68.
———. “Canada’s Northern Defenders: Aboriginal Peoples in the Canadian Rangers, 1947-2005,” in Aboriginal Peoples and the Canadian Military: Historical Perspectives, eds. P.W. Lackenbauer and Craig Mantle. Kingston: CDA Press, 2007: 171-208.
Larsen, Henry. The Big Ship. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967.
Larson, David L. “United States Interests in the Arctic Region,” Ocean Development and International Law 20 (1989): 167-91.
Lee, H.P. Policing the Top of the World. London: John Lane, 1928.
Lloyd, Trevor. “New Perspective on the North,” Foreign Affairs 42/2 (1964), 293-308.
Lopez, Barry. Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1986.
Lotz, Jim. Northern Realities: The Future of Northern Development in Canada. Toronto: New Press, 1972.
Loukacheva, Natalia. The Arctic Promise: Legal and Political Autonomy of Greenland and Nunavut. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007.
Lysyk, K. et al. Alaska Highway Pipeline Inquiry. Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1977.
MacDonald, Brian, ed. Defence Requirements for Canada’s Arctic. Vimy Paper 2007. Ottawa: Conference of Defence Associates, 2007.
MacDonald, R. St. J., ed. The Arctic Frontier. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966.
McClellan, Catherine. Part of the Land, Part of the Water: A History of the Yukon Indians. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1987.
McCullum, Hugh. This Land is Not for Sale. Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 1975.
McGhee, Robert. The Last Imaginary Place: A Human History of the Arctic World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
McMahon, Kevin. Arctic Twilight: Reflections on the Destiny of Canada’s Northern Land and People. Toronto: James Lorimer, 1988.
McRae, Donald M. “Arctic waters and Canadian sovereignty,” International Journal 38/3 (1983): 476-92.
———. “Arctic Sovereignty: Loss by Dereliction?,” Northern Perspectives [Canadian Arctic Resources Committee] 22/4 (1994-95).
———. “Arctic Sovereignty: What Is at Stake?,” Behind the Headlines 64/1 (2007).
Metayer, Maurice, trans. I, Nuligak. New York: Pocket Books, 1971.
Mitchell, Marybelle. From Talking Chiefs to a Native Corporate Elite: The Birth of Class and Nationalism Among Canadian Inuit. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996.
Morenus, Richard. DEW Line: Distant Early Warning, The Miracle of America’s First Line of Defense. New York, Rand McNally, 1957.
Morison, S.E. The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971.
Morrison, William R. Showing the Flag: the Mounted Police and Canadian Sovereignty in the North, 1894-1925. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1985.
———. “Eagle Over the Arctic: Americans in the Canadian North, 1867-1985,” Canadian Review of American Studies (Spring 1987): 61-85.
———. True North: The Yukon and Northwest Territories. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Morrison, W.R., and K.S. Coates. Working the North: Labor and the Northwest Defense Projects, 1942-1945. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 1994.
Moss, John. Enduring Dreams: An Exploration of Arctic Landscape. Don Mills: Anansi, 1994.
Mowat, F. The Desperate People. Boston: Little, Brown, 1959.
Moyles, R.G. British Law and Arctic Men. Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1979.
Neatby, Leslie. The Search for Franklin. Edmonton: Hurtig, 1970.
North, Dick. The Mad Trapper of Rat River. Toronto: Macmillan, 1972.
———. The Lost Patrol. Anchorage, Alaska: Northwest Publishing, 1978.
Nuttal, Mark. Protecting the Arctic: Indigenous Peoples and Cultural Survival. Amsterdam: Harwood, 1998.
Page, Robert. Northern Development: The Canadian Dilemma. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1986.
Peake, F.A. The Bishop Who Ate His Boots: A Biography of Isaac O. Stringer. Don Mills, ON: Anglican Church of Canada, 1966.
Pharand, Donat. Canada’s Arctic Waters in International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
———. “Arctic Waters and the Northwest Passage: A Final Revisit,” Ocean Development and International Law 38/1&2 (January 2007): 3-69.
Phillips, R.A.J. Canada’s North. Toronto: Macmillan, 1967.
Pullen, Thomas C. “What Price Canadian Sovereignty?,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 113/9 (1987): 66-72.
Purver, Ron. “The Arctic in Canadian Security Policy, 1945 to the Present,” in Canada’s International Security Policy, eds. David B. Dewitt and David Leyton-Brown. Scarborough, ON: Prentice-Hall, 1995: 81-110.
Rea, K.J. The Political Economy of the Canadian North. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968.
Robertson, Gordon. Northern Provinces: A Mistaken Goal? Ottawa: Institute of Public Policy Research, 1986.
———. Memoirs of a Very Civil Servant: Mackenzie King to Pierre Trudeau. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000.
Rohmer, Richard. The Arctic Imperative. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1973.
Ross, W.G. ed. An Arctic Whaling Diary: The Journal of Captain George Comer in Hudson Bay, 1903-1905. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984.
Rothwell, Donald R. “The Northwest Passage Dispute: A Reassessment,” Cornell International Law Journal 26 (1993): 331-72.
———. The Polar Regions and the Development of International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Rowley, Graham. Cold Comfort: My Love Affair with the Arctic, 2nd ed. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007.
Steele, S.B. Forty Years in Canada. London: Jenkins, 1915.
Stefansson, V. My Life With the Eskimo. New York: Macmillan, 1913.
———. The Friendly Arctic. New York: Macmillan, 1921.
———. Discovery. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.
Sverdrup, O. New Land: Four Years in the Arctic Regions. 2 vols. London: Longmans Green, 1904.
Tester, Frank J., and Peter Kulchyski. Tammarniit (Mistakes): Inuit Relocation in the Eastern Arctic, 1939-63. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1994.
Tynan, Thomas M. “Canadian-American Relations in the Arctic: The Effect of Environmental Influences upon Territorial Claims,” The Review of Politics 41/3 (July 1979): 402-27.
VanStone, James. Athapaskan Adaptations: Hunters and Fishermen of the Subarctic Forests. Chicago: Aldine, 1975.
Wallace, H.N. The Navy, the Company, and Richard King: British exploration in the Canadian Arctic, 1829-1860. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1980.
Webb, Melody. The Last Frontier: A History of the Yukon Basin of Canada and Alaska. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985.
Whittington, Michael. The North. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985.
Wonders, William C., ed. Canada’s Changing North. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1971.
———. Canada’s Changing North, rev. ed. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2003.
Woodman, David. Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991.
Wright, A.A. Prelude to Bonanza: The Discovery and Exploration of the Yukon.
Whitehorse: Arctic Star Printing, 1980.
Young, Oran R. Arctic Politics: Conflict and Cooperation in the Circumpolar North. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1992.
———. “Governing the Arctic: From Cold War Theatre to Mosaic of Cooperation,” Global Governance 11 (2005): 9-15.
Young, Steven B. To The Arctic: An Introduction to the Far Northern World. New York: John Wiley, 1989.
Yukon Native Brotherhood. Together Today for Our Children Tomorrow. Whitehorse: Yukon Native Brotherhood, 1973.
Zaslow, Morris. The Opening of the Canadian North, 1870-1914. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1971.
———. The Northward Expansion of Canada, 1914-1967. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1988.
———, ed. A Century of Canada’s Arctic Islands 1880-1890. Ottawa: The Royal Society of Canada, 1981.