Do they vote in national elections, get regular passports, etc.
Talking about the ones in the far north and semi-autonomous regions, not town dwellers.
Since the 1960s yes.
Yes. And you would be hard-pressed to find someone in the Arctic who doesn’t live in a settlement. They do have towns up there, you know. Life doesn’t stop at 60 degrees.
See that name? “Of the North”. I lived North of 60 for many years.
So, does anybody still live in igloos and hunt seals and all that kind of stuff, or has the “traditional” Inuit way of life pretty much died out?
Citizenship and voting are different issues.
Prior to 1947, no-one had Canadian citizenship. We were all British subjects, including First Nations. In 1947 Parliament enacted the Citizenship Act, at which time we all became Canadian citizens. Under either system, First Nations folk would get a Canadian passport just like anyone else.
Voting was different. The federal government had an assimilationist policy of “enfranchisement”. “Status Indians” could not vote in federal elections, but instead had treaty rights. If an individual gave up “Indian Status” they would gain the right to vote. Long story short, it didn’t work very well.
Even today, some First Nations people do not vote in federal elections, because they consider that doing so would subvert their treaty rights.
The traditional ways have pretty much died out as a way of life. In my experience, people will go ‘out on the land’ for months at a time during the summer, but no longer in the winter. This is also true for Natives, not solely Inuit. Men (primarily) will still go hunting, but now instead of a sled they’ll use a snowmobile, and a rifle rather than a spear.
Nobody ever “lived” in igloos. Igloos were temporary structures.
Native people in Canada and Alaska still get a large portion of their food from subsistence hunting, and subsistence hunting rights are legally protected. That doesn’t mean they hunt with spears, they hunt with rifles like everyone else. Some people keep dog teams, but they also have snowmobiles and 4-wheelers and pickup trucks.
Everybody lives in villages nowadays but that doesn’t mean people don’t go off hunting for a while.