The dream of university-level education delivered in the North, specifically for Northerners and with a focus on northern issues, has been present in Canada for a number of years. Although a charter adopted for a University of the North never came to fruition, the northern colleges (Yukon College, Aurora College in the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut Arctic College) have continued to grow. Although these colleges focus primarily on vocational programs, they do offer some academic courses, particularly at Yukon College, and have developed accords or memoranda of agreement with some southern universities for credit transfer. The demographics and economies of the Canadian North make it difficult to envisage a university in the North offering a comprehensive range of programs. Within the existing university system in Canada, few institutions offer comprehensive programs with a northern focus, although some offer specialization in one or more disciplines. By comparison, other circumpolar countries have major universities in the North with northern mandates (the University of Tromsø in Norway, the University of Lapland at Rovaniemi, Finland, and the University of Alaska campuses at Fairbanks and Anchorage) or major universities committed to Arctic research (for example, in Denmark and Sweden). The demographics of the circumpolar region, with small, dispersed communities, a wide range of communication systems, and difficult access, have required students wishing to pursue college and university education to move either to the larger centres in the North or to mid-latitude institutions, where much of the curriculum is not northern in focus and there are strong cultural stresses. The advent of the Arctic Council renewed interest in northern post-secondary education and particularly in university education on the international scene. In early 1997, following informal discussions, the Arctic Council asked the Circumpolar Universities Association (CUA) to appoint a task force to report on the concept of a circumpolar university. The Arctic Council accepted the report in late 1997 and charged the CUA with forming a working group to develop a feasibility study. The working group consisted of representatives of the eight circumpolar countries and the indigenous peoples of the Arctic.
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