Abstract
Throughout the north, the majority of residents live in sub-Arctic administrative centres south of the Arctic Circle. These ‘Arctic Gateways’ are critical administrative and service centres through which pass most goods and services to and from the Arctic. Although not Arctic communities in the strict sense, they still must deal with issues of environmental change such as melting permafrost, and threats from flooding and forest fires. While doing so, they also must cope with expanding economic development, tourism, and growing demands for services throughout the Arctic region. Findings are presented from a CAVIAR case study of adaption and vulnerability of one such ‘Arctic Gateway’ carried out in partnership with the staff and Council of the City of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. The study is based on extensive, in-depth interviews with elected officials and senior and operational staff of the City of Whitehorse, as well as with representatives of the Yukon Territory Government (YTG), First Nations, inter-governmental bodies, and NGOs responsible for administrative and resource management throughout southern Yukon. We explore key decision processes, institutional linkages and relationships within the civic government structure of the City of Whitehorse as well as with other jurisdictions and levels of government, including two First Nations upon whose traditional territory the City is situated. We find that existing adaptive strategies regarding climate change reside frequently in the processes of decision-making, planning and organizational culture as they are applied in the context of other changes facing the City and Yukon Territory. Thus, we explore the processes by which policies, decisions and adaptive responses take shape in both routine and uncommon or surprise situations around key areas of civic concern related to infrastructure, public health and safety, land-use planning, emergency preparedness and the environment. The case study is linked to the City’s ongoing Integrated Community Sustainability Planning process which provides the temporal basis for exploration of future changes and exposure-sensitivities as defined by various governance institutions. The focus on the application of governance as process and context provides a glimpse of the potential (institutional) capacity of Whitehorse to manage and cope with complex social-ecological changes taking place in the north now and in the future.
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Notes
- 1.
These once iconic rapids now lie behind the Whitehorse Dam, beneath the still waters of Schwatka Lake. To the north the City is bounded by Lake Laberge made famous in the poetry of Robert Service.
- 2.
At the time of writing employment statistics for the City were not available, however, a monthly report produced by the Yukon Bureau of Statistics for the Territory as a whole provides a useful proxy. Public sector employment in the Territory is substantial and over the past fifteen years has been increasing from 37% of total employed to almost 42% of the labour force in 2009 (Yukon Bureau of Statistics 2009).
- 3.
The historic jump off point for thousands of miners bound for the Yukon during the Klondike gold rush of the 1890s. Skagway now boasts a deep-water port built to accommodate large cruise ships drawn by the rich cultural and natural history of the area.
- 4.
In the wake of the closure of the Faro mine in 1997 (Yukon Bureau of Statistics 2009).
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Acknowledgements
Many persons in the Council and Administration of the City of Whitehorse and in the Government of Yukon were generous with their time and advice. However, we particularly wish to thank Mayor Bev Buckway and City Manager, Dennis Shewfelt from the City of Whitehorse for their time and for their enduring support. Similarly, in the Government of Yukon, we benefited from the advice of Carl Burgess, Intergovernmental Relations Officer, Executive Council Office, and Johanna Smith, Senior Analyst, Climate Change Secretariat, Department of Environment.
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Matthews, R., Sydneysmith, R. (2010). Climate Change and Institutional Capacity in an ‘Arctic Gateway’ City: A CAVIAR Case Study of Whitehorse. In: Hovelsrud, G., Smit, B. (eds) Community Adaptation and Vulnerability in Arctic Regions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9174-1_10
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