Inuit Circumpolar Conference

Mayor Hopson held a strong faith  in the strength of circumpolar Eskimo solidarity.  So, when he learned of President Carter administration's plan to ban bowhead whaling, he began organizing the Inuit Circumpolar Council to resist interference with Native whaling, hunting and fishing rights in the Arctic.  He began communicating and working with the Inuvialuit leaders of the Canadian arctic, and the Siumut party leadership of Greenland, to organize to defend subsistence whaling and hunting, and this led to the organization of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, and Alaska's Eskimo Whaling Commission.