At Yukon University conference, an examination of life in remote Canadian communities

Close to a hundred researchers and service providers gathered at Yukon University this past week to discuss the opportunities and challenges in rural, remote, and Indigenous communities in Canada.

The Focus of the four-day Northern Dialogues Conference was "remoteness."

Topics covered by presenters included everything from food security in northern Ontario First Nations to analysis of the labour markets in the territories to how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted museums in rural Manitoba.

Kyle Rich, a faculty member at Brock University in Ontario, was one of the conference co-chairs.

When we talk about rural areas, he said, we think about population sizes, density, and distance. "But the distance one doesn't probably get as much airtime."

Researching Arctic Muslims

Bouchra Mossman has a background in Islamic Studies, and has spent the past two years of her PhD at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, Denmark.

She presented a session titled 'Arctic Muslims' looking at the experiences of Muslim residents of northern communities.

Bushra Mossman is a PhD candidate at the University of Southern Denmark, researching Muslim experiences in the North. Muslim-Indigenous interactions are an important topic of study for her. (Asad Chishti / CBC)

A particular focus of her current research is Muslim-Indigenous interactions. She has done interviews in Yellowknife and Inuvik, and is planning do some in Whitehorse as well.

One idea that sticks out to her is something a Dene interviewee in Yellowknife told her "about the shared history of suffering [in Muslim and Indigenous communities], and then also the ways in which folks learned about each other from a colonizer's perspective."

"What really sticks out for me is the diversity of the communities that is much different from the fragmentation that we see in cities along linguistic or ethnic or other lines," she said of the communities she has visited in the North.

Mossman will be in the Yukon for another month, doing more research interviews on these topics.

Supporting Rural Recreation

Caroline Sparks, has worked in recreation for over 35 years, and currently working with Recreation and Parks Association of Yukon (RPAY). She presented a couple of sessions including one on Resilient Recreation in Rural Yukon.

Caroline Sparks has been working in recreation for over 35 years, across all three territories. Sparks says looking at recreation as a "public good" is essential. (Asad Chishti / CBC)

Her work in the field has encompassed all three territories. Sparks says looking at recreation as a "public good" is essential. What that means, she says, is that everyone is able to participate.

Sparks says that the challenges for recreation in rural communities are tough, but that it is important to figure out ways to do so wherever you are.

Teachings from the North 

Leila Kelleher and Cynthia Lawson Jaramillo are faculty members at the Parsons School of Design in New York City.

The title of their sessions were 'Inuit Community Knowledge Sharing in Recreation' and 'Remote Craft: Design Intrusions and Social Marginalization in Artisan Communities'.

Cynthia Lawson Jaramillo and Leila Kelleher are faculty members at the Parsons School of Design at the New School, a university in New York City. (Asad Chishti / CBC)

Kelleher attended the predecessor of Northern Dialogues called Northern Directions in North Bay, Ont. in 2022. She was thrilled to hear it was going to be hosted in Whitehorse this time.

"This conference is a great bringing together of community. From researchers to practitioners to municipal governance people," Kelleher says. "That really rich and diverse community is what makes this conference really, really special."

Jaramillo's research has been focused on the Global South. She says it has been very meaningful to learn more about rural and remote experiences in a northern context.

"I hope that bridges are created to other geographical parts of the world that could really benefit and learn from the practices up here," Jaramillo said.