2023 ECO-Award Second Place Winner

Joan Scottie has spent decades protecting the Inuit hunting way of life, most famously with her long battle against the uranium mining industry. Twice, Scottie and her community of Baker Lake successfully stopped a proposed uranium mine.

Scottie helped start and form the Baker Lake Concerned Citizens Committee, the main opposition to the German-based mining company called Urangesellschaft. They were able to get many of the involved parties to accept a local vote, which in the end was 90 percent opposed.

Working with geographer Warren Bernauer and social scientist Jack Hicks, Scottie tells the history of her community’s decades-long fight against uranium mining in their book I Will Live For Both of Us. I Will Live for Both of Us highlights the importance of both environmental activism and traditional Inuit practices. Canadian Dimension said in a review "This book should be read, first and foremost, by young activists who want to read, learn from and perhaps be inspired by a David and Goliath story."