The circum-Arctic North is a global zone peripheral to the main concentrations of human settlement on the planet, defined not only by high latitude, but more significantly by a the prevalence of extreme geographic and climatic conditions. In the human societies within this global zone in the early 21st century, however, we find very wide variation in demographic, social, cultural and political conditions. The aim of this chapter is to explore how that variety in human societies has played out in terms of language usage, and more specifically, how the more recently emergent societies and jurisdictions of the present day in the North American North have responded in terms of formal language policy.