The Fourth World

For five thousand years, the Eskimos, or Inuit, have survived in one of the harshest environments in the world, the Arctic. Here, at the top of the world, hardship and suffering go hand in hand with fortitude and courage. A mere fifty years ago, starvation, cannibalism and female infanticide were as much a part of their lives as hamburgers and electronic arcade games are today.This transition from Stone Age to Space Age living, and its impli-cations for the future, has passed almost unnoticed in the south. Although hundreds of books have been written about the Arctic, the majority allude to the courage of explorers, and by inference to that of their authors, who have consistently portrayed the Eskimo as 'Nanook of the North', the happy hunter living with his family and a litter of husky puppies in an igloo. The Fourth World is an attempt to destroy this out¬dated image.Today, the old hunting culture is threatened by hydro-electric plants, oil pipelines, offshore oil rigs, western consumer goods and fall-out from military and political manoeuvring. In the next decade, and during the early years of the twenty-first century, industrial man will build new towns, roads, railways and airports in the frozen wastelands. Crops will be grown where previously there was only ice and snow. Ships, escorted by nuclear icebreakers, will regularly ply the Northwest and Northeast Passages, for centuries the dream of European merchants. On the polar ice cap, oil men will drill to a depth of 20,000 feet, while beneath them nuclear submarines bristling with missiles patrol the ocean darkness.If, in the future, the Arctic is to be developed responsibly, it is important to review the effects on Eskimo culture of the developed world. This can be achieved only by studying and understanding the reasons for ancient Eskimo customs. To this end, Part two studies the attitudes of the explorers, missionaries, whalers, hunters, trappers and traders, whose incursions contributed directly to the erosion of the Eskimo culture, are discussed in Part Two. This goes on to describe from personal observation the realities of the Arctic today, and to compare the plight of the Eskimos with that of the Sami (Lapps) of Scandinavia. Progress in all areas has been rapid and unchecked. Governments and business interests have exploited the region without thought for the land or the sea, or for the peoples of the north. In the scramble to exploit arctic riches, the 'Eskimos', whom we now know as 'Inuit', have been swept aside to become second-class citizens in their own territory. Since the Arctic was opened up during the 1940s, ignorance and greed have jeopardized the equilibrium not only of the delicate arctic environment, but of the entire northern hemisphere. Yet, once the wheels of the industrial mono-culture begin to turn, they are difficult to stop. They must, however, be brought under control at once if the Arctic is to be saved.