Multinational Corporations in the Arctic: From Colonial-Era Chartered Companies to Contemporary Co-management and Collaborative Governance

Abstract

An imperial crossroads of global—and in particular, economic—importance for centuries, the Western Arctic region remains largely underdeveloped as compared to other such crossroads of empire. It’s a vast region spanning two countries, encompassing one state and two territories that converge along a boundary once separating two global empires, Russia’s and Britain’s, at the zenith of their territorial breadth—until the sale of Russian-America to the United States. The Western Arctic’s relative underdevelopment has resulted in a relatively light influx of settlers, despite—indeed, one might argue, because of—the active role of the world’s first multinational corporations (MNCs), the crown-chartered companies of the colonial era like the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), leaving the indigenous peoples of the region with a substantial and sustained demographic majority that has contributed to their recent, and historic, re-empowerment.