In most parts of the arctic, the traditional lifestyle of indigenous populations can no longer be sustained in the face of a rapid natural increase in the population and commercial exploitation of the circumpolar habitat by the multinational corporations of ‘modern’ society. This final chapter will highlight a few valuable characteristics of the traditional northern heritage that merit preservation. It will review desirable future adaptations of indigenous circumpolar society, and will draw some lessons for sedentary city-dwellers, health professionals and indigenous populations that have colonized other habitats.

The heritage of traditional circumpolar life

A heavy use of imported technology, fossilized carbon energy and other material resources allows the city-dweller to exploit the coldest parts of the arctic, regions that destruction of the natural flora and fauna has made uninhabitable for the first nations. Perhaps for this reason, temporary arctic sojourners and immigrants from lower latitudes often suggest or imply that the ways of their society are in some fashion superior to those of the indigenous circumpolar residents. As a corrective to such a judgment, it seems useful to list some important lessons that ‘developed’ societies could learn from indigenous populations. Accumulated knowledge and behavioural adaptations have allowed peoples with no great inherent biological advantages to colonize one of the earth's least promising regions, and to succeed in their endeavour without recourse to the technological props that the ‘modern’ city-dweller finds so essential when venturing into the arctic.