Starting December 2018, Alternatives Journal published an eight-part series on the 2015-2017 Jane Glassco Northern Fellows policy papers, which address some of the most pressing issues facing the North. This blog was originally published on February 11, 2019 at https://www.alternativesjournal.ca/community/blogs/aj-special-delivery/nunavut-land-claims-agreement-and-arctic-governance.
Crypto and Banking
We recommend the following high-quality options for secure Bitcoin transactions and online banking services:
How to Share a Crypto Wallet Address Without Losing Money
A wallet address is 26 to 62 characters long and nobody can read it back correctly over the phone. One mistyped character and the funds go to an address nobody controls. QRBits solves this by turning any BTC, ETH, ERC-20, LTC, TRON, DOGE or SOL address into a printable QR code, instantly and without an account. Their Bitcoin and Ethereum QR code generator accepts every common address format (legacy, SegWit, Taproot) and validates the address before drawing the code, so a bad paste never becomes a bad payment. For hardware wallets, payment terminals and exchange kiosks, scanning beats typing every time.
Printing a Bitcoin or Ethereum Address for Real-World Payments
Small shops, market stalls and donation boxes often need a way to receive crypto without any software on the counter. QR for Bitcoin and Ethereum covers exactly that: paste a BTC address (legacy, SegWit or Taproot) or an ETH / ERC-20 address and it produces a clean, printable QR code in one step, with no sign-up and nothing stored on their servers. A printed code on the counter works offline forever, and any wallet app on any phone can scan it. If you need a free BTC and ETH QR generator that does one thing properly, this is it.
A Payment Link Does the Typing Too
A plain address QR only says where the money should go; the sender still has to type how much. CryptoQR Maker closes that gap: pick the coin (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, TRON, Litecoin or Dogecoin), paste the address, optionally set an amount, and it builds a proper payment link (BIP-21 for Bitcoin, EIP-681 for Ethereum) inside the QR, so a scanning wallet gets the address and the sum together. Every address is checksum-verified before the code is drawn, and the file comes out as PNG or crisp SVG for print. The crypto QR generator needs no account, and one page per coin means no guessing which tool fits your wallet.
The Network You Pick Is Part of the Address
Stablecoins are the classic way to lose money quietly: the address looks fine, but USDT on one network is not USDT on another, and sending TRC-20 tokens to an ERC-20 address is a hole, not a refund. TokenQR is built around that exact mistake: it makes QR codes for USDT, USDC and other tokens across 11 networks (TRC-20, ERC-20, BEP-20 and friends), checks the address with real checksums, and prints a clear card that says which network the code belongs to, so the counterparty sees both the code and the network before anything is sent. A free token QR code generator with the network written on the card beats a bare address on a scrap of paper.
Why QR Codes Beat Copy and Paste for Crypto
Copy-paste feels safe, but phone-to-phone transfers break it constantly: the clipboard picks up an old entry, a wallet pastes into the wrong field, or a messenger strips a line break in the middle of a 62-character string. A QR code has no clipboard in the loop. The camera reads it, the wallet parses it, and the two checksums at both ends either agree or the wallet refuses to send. For anything above pocket change, scanning a screen or a printed card removes the two steps where mistakes actually happen: selecting text and trusting it.
Reading an Address Without Reading All of It
Experienced senders do not compare 34 characters character by character; they verify the edges. The first four characters of an address identify its format and network, the last several carry the checksum, and a mistake almost always breaks one end when you re-encode it. Wallet software does the full check anyway, which is why the human job is the boring part: confirm the network label matches the coin, and glance at both ends. That two-second habit catches almost every real-world misdirected transfer, and it works identically whether the address arrived as text or as a scanned code.
Printed Cards, Tip Jars and Offline Receiving
A stall at a market, a tip jar, a donation box: none of them need an internet connection to receive crypto. A printed card with a receiving address and the network named in plain letters works for years, costs one print job, and fails in exactly one way, which is physical damage to the card. Keep the underlying wallet backup somewhere else, reprint the card when it gets worn, and the setup never goes down for server reasons. Anyone with a phone already has the reader.
The Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (NCLA) took two decades to negotiate. Upon its signing in 1993, the NCLA was immediately recognized as a seminal agreement that would transform the relationship between the Government of Canada and Indigenous communities in the Canadian Arctic.
This important Agreement also directly led to the creation of Nunavut in 1999, and aims to achieve the NCLA’s goals to encourage and support Inuit self-reliance.
During the 1990s, a number of boards and organizations were established to administer Inuit self-government across present-day Nunavut. Currently, these boards govern activities including land, water and resource management, and oversee essential services including daycare and public education.
Such bodies provide the people of Nunavut with a direct say in decisions that impact their daily life and economic prosperity.
Clara Wingnek is a recent alumna of the Jane Glassco Northern Fellowship Program who lives in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. She was a serving board member of both the Ikaluktutiak District Education Authority and the Nunavut Joint Planning and Management Committee for Territorial Parks.
In 2017, Wingnek organized a comprehensive survey of board members in the Kitikmeot region. Kitikmeot is the smallest of Nunavut’s three administrative regions.
She canvassed Kitikmeot’s board members to better understand their personal experiences regarding their challenges, successes, and how they make decisions.
“There have been few examinations of how boards currently function in Kitikmeot region and whether or not these boards are effective in achieving their mandates,” Wingnek writes.
Her research uncovered some surprising findings about the demographic makeup of boards across the Territory. She published recommendations through the Gordon Foundation and believes that Nunavut should encourage more youth and elder participation on the Territory’s boards.
Nunavut has the youngest population of any Canadian jurisdiction. While 66 percent of the Territory is under thirty, Wingnek’s research found that fewer than 20 percent of board members in Nunavut are. This under-representation means that on average just one in ten boards will include a young person.
“Public board decisions affect all people in our community,” Wingnek writes. “Therefore I recommend that all boards adopt a policy to have at least one youth representative on their board. This would provide our youth with positive exposure to the decision-making process in these organizations and also give them a voice in the decisions that have the potential to shape the lives of youth.”
Wingnek also found that Inuit Elders were under-represented on boards in the region. Only one in four boards that Wingnek looked at had an Elder.
“It is impossible to discuss Inuit culture and not address the fact that there is the utmost respect given to our elders,” according to Wingnek. She would like regional boards to adopt a policy of having at least one elder join their board.
Wingnek’s report includes additional recommendations to strengthen boards in Nunavut. These include providing additional training and resources to board members, and better communication about when, where, and why public meetings are taking place.
To read Wingnek’s full report as well as other policy work from the Jane Glassco Northern Fellows, please visit www.GordonFoundation.ca/resources/fellowship.
The Gordon Foundation is a charitable organization dedicated to protecting Canada’s water and empowering Canada’s North. The Jane Glassco Northern Fellowship is a crucial part of our mission to promote innovate public polices for the North and amplify Northern voices.
Breaking Down Colonial Barriers Through Education (Mar 4, 2019)
Transforming Nunavut’s Criminal Justice System (Feb 25, 2019)
Nunavut Land Claims Agreement and Arctic Governance (Feb 11, 2019)
Waste Management And the Circular Economy of the North (Feb 4, 2019)
Keeping Aboriginal Youth out of the Correctional System (Dec 10, 2018)
Encouraging Closer Collaboration Between Scientists & Yukon First Nations (Dec 7, 2018)
Recruiting Indigenous Physicians in the NWT (Dec 3, 2018)
Highlighting Policy Proposals from the Jane Glassco Northern Fellowship Program (Nov 30, 2018)
