Iqaluit

To date in this blog I've almost unreservedly proposed and expounded the benefits of integrating computational technology and automated systems into the natural and human world. In doing so, I've implied that this is universally possible and beneficial and that the utility will be felt worldwide. However, the reality is that there are barriers preventing everywhere and all from getting these benefits. In fact, there are places that are falling, or are likely to fall, victim to computational expansion.

The reasons why somewhere might not benefit fit from these technologies can be divided into 2 groups: geographical (i.e. spatial) and human (i.e. economic, social, and political) constraints.  Of course in reality there is considerable overlap between these two groups.

In this post I'm going to talk about a place that is not 'computationally' thriving as others are for predominately geographical (i.e. simply where they are on the globe) reasons. In a paired post, later in the week I will try to look at some examples of places where there are considerable 'barriers to entry' for human reasons.

My example case study that I want to talk about is Iqaluit, in Nunavut, Northern Canada. With a population of 6,700 people, Iqaluit is the largest settlement in Nunavut, itself the largest of the Canadian provinces. Nunavut is of an equivalent size to Mexico or Western Europe but has a population equivalent to Gibraltar. It is also the location of the world's most northerly fully inhabited settlement.

Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada.

Formalized as a settlement in 1942 as an American air base with a specific function of a cross-Atlantic refueling station, Iqaluit was for a long time known as Frobisher Bay. Before that, it was a traditional Inuit place of hunting for over 4,000 years. In 1940, the Hudson's Bay company relocated here and the settlement grew. In 1964, a community council was elected and in 1979 its first mayor was installed. Ever since then its population has steadily been rising and was chosen as the provinces capital in 1995. Its population is around 85% Inuit, the remaining 15% are predominately caucasian Canadians who migrate there for 3-4 years to take advantage of the high wages and skill deficit.  Despite being a monumental testament to human ability to live in extreme environments Iqaluit is in many ways lagging behind the rest of Canada.

Shooting hoops in front of Iqaluit's cathedral (left) and town hall (right)

Many of the technologies that underpin modernity and much of the advancements that humanity is making are themselves underpinned by access to the internet. Rapid communication of information results in profound and lasting changes. However, the position of Iqaluit, north of the 60th parallel and at the mouth of the Northwest Passage, means that laying fiber optics is simply unfeasible. As such, the only telecommunications option is satellite. This means that internet in Iqaluit is equivalent to that of the UK in the mid 1990s. They pay $30s a month for 45 hours of dial-up services. The effect of this is severely hampering.

Whilst personal access could easily be shrugged off as an unnecessary indulgence (after all, haven't we lived without internet for over 8000 years?), the effect on services is severe. Especially, when it is considered how much Nunavut is dependent upon Canada's greater infrastructure and resources situated 3,000 miles to the south.

Additionally mobile phone service is poor. It is often discussed and quoted how beneficial mobile telecommunications are to remote and developing parts of the world, for example Africa, but this is simply not feasible. In fact, the publishing of this post is very timely as on Saturday, Iqaluit will for the first time have a mobile phone service that has the capability to run smartphones.

Iqaluit has many huge problems surrounding issues of food requirements and food security. A large proportion of these could be solved, or improved, with the use of computational technology. Wakegijig et al. (2013) highlight how community members, all sorts of organisations, public servants and academics alike have long been describing the 'desperate situation for food security' in Nunavut. Defining food insecurity as when food systems and networks are such that food is not accessible and/or of sufficient quality, 70% of Nunavut's Inuit pre-schoolers live in food insecure homes. Wakegijig et al. highlight the absolute importance of strategic planning, advocacy, and public mobilisation to raise the profile of an issue and to solve it. Community engagement and action is difficult to organize today without internet access, especially when large, indoor public spaces are scare and outdoor spaces, to for example protest in, are difficult to occupy 80% of the year as Iqaluit is frozen and one doesn't want to be hanging around outside in -40 Celsius.

Food in Iqaluit comes from two sources. It is either hunted, or imported. Both of these are highly sensitive to climatic changes. Indeed, the recent warming trends have changed hunting and fishing grounds in ways that make regular hunting difficult. It is also not necessarily easy to predict these changes. For example, Inuit have for many, many years hunted caribou (also called Reindeer). With the recent warning trends they have had access to more grazing land and populations had flourished. However, this led to a relaxation in policy and over-hunting ensued. As such populations have now been devastated.

Importing food is costly. Having myself walked around the supermarket in Iqaluit, I have seen first hand how much food goes to waste because it is not bought. Many vegetables and other perishable goods are sent north and stocked. However, eating many of these things has never been a part of Inuit cooking so they remain unbought and go off. If internet access was more widely available, people could order the food they wanted thus costs could go down and waste could be reduced.

Samuelson (1998) found that the rapid population growth this coastal community has resulted in increased pressure on the (particularly sensitive) environment, and waste management issues have become increasingly complicated. There is severe contamination of fresh water: which is not an abundant resource as one might expect. Computational technology would dramatically improve this situation but it simply remains to be integrated because at them moment it is too expense to get the technology up there and build it rugged enough for the local environment.

Iqaluit also experiences many health problems. Cole and Healey (2013) outline the on-going challenge of providing health-care in the Canadian Arctic, specifically the region's capital. The truth is that Inuit culture and the vast geography of the region make things difficult. The great distances people must travel to get any form of specialized health care or diagnosis leads to a number of ethical dilemmas. One third of Nunavut health care budget is spent on moving people to a site that can provide them with the care that they need. The sort of simple optimization that computers can provide would dramatically improve this situation. Both in the fields of propagating information and finding better solutions to existing problems.

Iqaluit, and Nunavut more generally, has many social and health related problems.

Of course this is not an exhaustive list of the problems areas that integrating computational technology would be able to help out in. Iqaluit has two prisons for its population of under 7,000 people. Both of these are full, and a new one has just been commissioned. This is startling. Animals also play a huge role in the daily lives of individuals living here. The sort of help that automated tracking, for example of polar bears, could bring is monumental. 

Many of these problems wont be fixed anytime soon by computers. In many cases it is impossible to bring the sort of technologies that would help this far north due to environmental constraints, for example as is the case for fiber optics. In other cases, the fact that the population is so small makes it unlikely for projects to be commercially viable despite the profound importance of Iqaluit as the regions capital. As such, creative ways to solve these problems need to be composed.


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 I've put the code to draw the map on the sister site. URL: http://herculescyborgcode.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/map-drawing.html

The photos are my own. If you would like to use them please email me and I can give you access to many more.