Indigenous Arctic Peoples
The Inuit, Saami, and other Indigenous peoples who have lived in the Arctic for millennia — their rights, voices, and role in Arctic governance.
The First Arctic Nations
Approximately four million people live in the Arctic, and roughly 10% belong to Indigenous groups whose presence predates any modern state by thousands of years. The Inuit span across Alaska, northern Canada, and Greenland. The Saami live across northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula. Dozens of other groups — the Aleut, Yupik, Nenets, Chukchi, and many more — have distinct cultures, languages, and relationships with the land and sea.
For these communities, the Arctic is not a frontier to be exploited — it is home. Climate change threatens their way of life in immediate, tangible ways: thinning ice makes traditional hunting dangerous, permafrost thaw destabilizes buildings and infrastructure, changing migration patterns of caribou and marine mammals disrupt food systems, and coastal erosion is forcing some communities to relocate entirely.