As we welcome you to Montréal (Tiohtià:ke) for the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP) Final Summit, we acknowledge that we are gathering on the traditional unceded territories of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinabeg nations. These lands have long been a place of meeting and exchange amongst First Nations peoples. We recognize and respect these nations as we gather from countries around the world, in the spirit of peace and sharing of early treaties.
We also acknowledge that YOPP work in the Circumpolar Arctic takes place in the homelands of many Indigenous peoples, including: Aleut, Athabaskan, Gwich’in, Inuit, Russian, and Saami Indigenous peoples. In addition, we acknowledge the connections that Māori, Polynesian, Tierra del Fuego, and Patagonian Indigenous peoples have had, and continue to have, with the Southern Ocean, the Antarctic sub-Antarctic Islands and parts of the Antarctic continent.
In Canada, Inuit Nunangat includes Inuit homelands of: Nunatsiavut (northern Labrador), Nunavik (northern Québec), Nunavut, and the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (northern Northwest Territories). We also have a diversity of northern Indigenous peoples living in Arctic and sub-Arctic Canada in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, Québec, and Labrador.
