Reframing the polar exploration narrative: Inuit resilience and ecological transformations in the early 20th century North American Arctic

Abstract

The late polar exploration period—spanning from the 1890s to the 1930s—was categorised as European presence in indigenous lands, Inuit cultural decline, and ecological changes in the North American Arctic. Existing scholarship has continuously focused on European interactions with Inuit communities to study why they experienced shifts in their relationship with the natural environment following polar exploration. This thesis will thus move beyond the overemphasis on European influences in Arctic environmental historiography. Instead, it offers an interdisciplinary study of how different Inuit communities across the region responded to ecological, cultural and religious shifts resulting from two interconnected events in North American polar exploration history—the decline in commercial whaling and the introduction of reindeer herding. By centring the Inuit communities in the polar exploration narrative, this thesis acknowledges the rising importance of Inuit cultural preservation. It builds upon current scholarship on Inuit cultural resilience by using an environmental anthropological framework to highlight the historical interplay between ecology, culture, and religion in the human-nature relationship. Therefore, by reframing the polar exploration narrative, this thesis links the Inuit environmental ties during the late polar exploration to broader themes of economic development, cultural resilience, and religious syncretism from the 1890s to the 1930s.