IQALUIT, Nunavut -- The first aboriginal northerner to lead the group of eight nations that ring the North Pole has stepped down from the post.

Speaking of the pride she took in heading the Arctic Council, federal Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq handed the chairmanship off to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during a meeting in the northern capital Friday.

"It was a great honour for me, as an Inuk, to be the first Arctic indigenous person to serve as chair of the Arctic Council," Aglukkaq told the meeting.

Aglukkaq said the council, which co-ordinates international co-operation and research in the increasingly busy and contested region, must continue to include the concerns and expertise of northerners to inform its work.

"No one knows better than the people who live here how to survive and thrive in the Arctic environment -- this land of intense cold, strong winds, and darkness we face much of the year," she said.

"The people in the Arctic are the true Arctic experts and we must include their perspectives. We simply must."

Aglukkaq took credit for putting the concerns of northerners at the top of the agenda for Canada's two-year chairmanship.

New studies have been commissioned. They include work on black carbon, a significant contributor to sea ice melt, and mental health.

"Addressing mental wellness is a personal priority of mine," she said.

Canada has also overseen recommendations to use more traditional knowledge in Arctic Council research.

The Canadian chairmanship also saw the birth of the Arctic Economic Council, a self-selecting group of businesses from around the Arctic who meet to discuss opportunities and best practices.

Critics have said the scientific work would have gone ahead regardless. They also question the need for the economic forum.

American officials have said the focus for their two-year chairmanship will be on climate change, considered to be progressing faster in the Arctic than anywhere on the planet.

This northern meeting, however, takes place under a slight diplomatic chill.

Council members have viewed with some alarm recent Russian activities in the Arctic, which have included massive military exercises involving tens of thousands of troops -- far more than any other Arctic nation has or could mobilize in the North.

Canadian Defence Minister Jason Kenney has referred to those actions as "aggressive."

As well, Aglukkaq has promised to take up Russia's activities in Ukraine with that country's representative.

Russia is not sending Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, but Environment Minister Sergei Donskoi instead.

The public in the member nations seems to have picked up on the mood. A survey of 10,000 people from all eight of them suggested as much.

About one-third of the people surveyed in five of the eight countries believe the threat of armed conflict in the Arctic grew over the last year. That ranges from 24 per cent in the continental U.S. to 35 per cent in Norway.

Among Canadians, that percentage stands at 36 per cent in the south and 30 per cent among northerners.