Social scientist travels north to help Nunavut hamlet capitalize on resource development

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Chelsea Gabel in Kugluktuk earlier this year. The assistant professor in Health, Aging and Society is helping the Nunavut hamlet better understand the socio-economic opportunities nearby resource development projects may hold.


Residents of a remote northern hamlet have turned to a McMaster researcher to help them get the most out of nearby resource development projects.

The 1,450 residents of Kugluktuk, Nunavut have chosen Chelsea Gabel, an assistant professor in Health, Aging and Society, to lead a community readiness project that will identify socio-economic opportunities related to nearby mining developments.

“We will be looking at the impacts of mining but we’ll also try to determine what a healthy community looks like,” says Gabel. “This is an exciting project and it’s being done in a way that has never been done before.”

Gabel and research partner Emilie Cameron of Carleton University were in the north in March, interviewing and holding focus group sessions with area residents including youth, elders and mine employees. Their goal is to help the citizens of Kugluktuk capitalize on resource development while preparing to deal with any of its negative consequences.

The March trip was Gabel’s first visit to Kugluktuk, which sits on the Arctic Ocean and is currently experiencing 24-hour sunlight, but her family did live in the Northwest Territories for ten years.

Her and her research team will travel back to the community in August to administer a detailed household survey. One team member, PhD candidate Bernice Downey, will train residents to take on future community readiness projects themselves.

“As academics, we are really invested in the community. And since my background is in health, I am also looking at not only the impacts of mining, but of what a healthy community looks like in general,” says Gabel.

A final report will be delivered to the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency in March, 2015.