Residents of a remote northern community won’t allow researchers with the National Aeronautics and Space Agency’s Haughton-Mars Project on to Inuit-owned land on Devon Island unless an agreement for benefits is negotiated. Two weeks ago, representatives of Grise Fiord, a hamlet of 170 people on the southern coast of Ellesmere Island, visited the site of the NASA-sponsored project on the rim of the Haughton Crater, the site of a 20-kilometre impact caused by a meteor collision millions of years ago. The international group of scientists, engineers and students have been working on the crater site for three years as part of the Haughton-Mars Project, which aims to eventually colonize Mars. The barren location was selected by the research team because of its similarity to the surface of the Red Planet. But for the past year, Grise Fiord officials have forbidden anyone associated with the project to use Inuit-owned lands, which comprise 70% of the area around the Haughton Crater.