minutes before we were to go on somewhere else. People were reading and the books could be taken off the shelf, it was a working, welcoming library.We need buildings like this ourselves.We need a concentrated attempt to make the North something different, for us. I think our archi- tects that we went with, Saucier, Erickson, Shim and Sutcliff all realized this, meeting their counterparts in every place we went to. Tom Strickland : Do you feel that a place like Finland has been more open to the North, culturally and politically, and as a result has allowed that frontier to become a part of them, their idea about democracy, their ideas about living, about building cities? Adrienne Clarkson : I observe, as Governor-General, that when I travel in the North it is essentially, deeply Canadian, it is not a differ- ent country. I felt that from the first time I flew down the MacKenzie River in 1971. I felt it deeply. People there feel that they are Canadian, feel that they are part of Canada. We must make the South understand that.There is tremendous ignorance about the North, unfortunately, and sometimes a willful turning away from it. Often it’s as simple as feeling that it’s very expensive to go there. It’s not that expensive nor is it that far to places like Iqaluit — it’s only three and a half hours from Ottawa, but it doesn’t have its place in the imagination. I think in terms of political culture the North is doing just fine. But you can’t import southern models of buildings to a northern place and expect them to work, it can’t be. We must depend upon architects, town planners and environmentalists to develop a model that will make our cities, our towns in the North speak to the place itself. I’m not an architect but I’m always interested in innovation and the way architects use different kinds of materials. In the last couple of Governor Gen- eral’s Awards for Architecture, at least half of the architects are very concerned with having environmental buildings that don’t eat up energy, giving nothing back. I think that is the model we’re going to have to go to in the North. Tom Strickland :Thank you for clearing up the idea that it is not as much a political issue as it is one of the imagination. Adrienne Clarkson : Oh, I think that’s totally true. I think that sometimes people use the political question as an excuse for not dealing with where people are actually living, with how they make their day- to-day lives, how they make choices.You want to have a building which, although streamlined and not expensive, is a vernacular known to the North. You don’t want people to go into strange kinds of shapes but you want them to be able to use buildings to free themselves. If you’re concerned with the fact that a lot of kids leave school after grade 10, how can you make schools interesting and challenging so that there are spaces that people want to learn in. How do you develop facilities for sport? How do you deal with the fact that there is twilight for months at a time? How do you deal with the fact that there is daylight for three months of the year — all day long? Canada could be a leader in this — I think we have a wonderful body of architects, I watched their work even before I became Governor-General, when I did the prefaces for the awards and always looked at the finalists as well as the people who won. I think architecture is the way in which you can actually make it possible to live in our climate.That’s what I tried to get across in our a s Governor General, my going to the North draws attention to the fact that: a) it exists, b) it is extremely important for Canadians to realize that they are a Northern country. Otherwise, you pretend that the greater part of your country is not there and you live in denial about your real identity. We are a northern people. I want us to think of how we relate to the countries that share the same latitudes as we do — latitude, because of the effect it has on climate and character. Longitude is for adventure and discovery, but latitude is for living.
On being a northern country an interview with Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada
Tom Strickland
Tom Strickland : Awareness of the ‘other’, in this case the North, in nar- rative, place and culture is something that was emphasized during the State Visit to the circumpolar countries. Openness to this diversity has important implications for architecture. In Canada the value of this diversity has yet to be translated to urban and rural planning which are still influenced by the South. Canada has opened its political culture to diversity with the creation of Nunavut, however, at this place in our history does Canadian culture truly reflect the North? Adrienne Clarkson : With Nunavut as the newest territory, Iyujivik in northern Quebec with its distinct identity, the Northwest Territories and Yukon we have an identity and a diversity which is not Southern and never has been.The North its always been our frontier. It is the place where we push boundaries. Tom Strickland : Is the North the frontier in other circumpolar coun- tries or did you find places in which the North is an integrated part of their national identity? Adrienne Clarkson : In the three countries that we went to, Russia, Finland and Iceland, the North plays a different kind of role. Russia’s North is Siberia which has, for two to three hundred years, been a place of exile. For example, in 1826 the Decembrists, who were an aristo- cratic group rebelling against the Czarists, were transported to Siberia where they lived for the rest of their lives. People stayed there because there wasn’t such a thing as coming back .There was no train that would take them back to Moscow or St. Petersburg, Novgorod or Kiev.The governor of Salekhard (a place in the Arctic Circle that we went to visit — an enormously booming gas town) was born there. His parents were in the Gulag that we had visited. When released they moved to the nearest little town.That’s the story of the habitation in the Russian North, people moved there against their will and had to stay —this cre- ates a distinctive kind of society. With their wealth they have built very interesting buildings, in brick, in concrete block, even stone.We have not yet developed such a distinctive architecture. I think we could, the Nunavut Legislative Assembly is a very good start, as is the Legislative Assembly in Yellowknife. We have to take into account the different temperatures in all our dif- ferent Norths. What’s different about Northern Finland (we went right to the north to Inari which is the centre of Sámi culture) is that they have the Gulf Stream around the top of Finland. At the same latitude as Yellowknife, or even Tutoyaktuk, they can still grow wheat, they herd their reindeer and don’t actually live a totally nomadic life. They have trees that are anywhere from six to eight feet tall — our tree line is much farther south than that. So a different culture has evolved there, still a culture of the North, but not what we would call a First Nations culture. Then there is Iceland, which is between 8º and 14ºC all year round . Ice- land’s ability to survive as a society, from Viking times, is due to the Gulf Stream.They have very little snow compared to Ottawa or Montreal, very little snow. Instead they have hot springs and a different kind of feeling. In Finland, you get wonderful architecture. In Rovaniemi you have the library of Alvar Alto which is a landmark building, just an extraordinary place.With our delegates we landed there to have a little tour fifteen
On Site review 11
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Spring 2004
Architecture of the Circumpolar Region
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