Circumpolar Newsings
Review: Hensley’s optimistic memoir a touching and riveting book
(David James/Fairbanks News-Miner, 7 February 2010) -- FAIRBANKS - In 1964 a young Inupiat graduate student at UAF wrote a paper that explored legal documents pertaining to Alaska’s purchase and eventual establishment as a state. In these writings he had found language implying that the then-new state’s Native population held legal claim on a considerable amount of territory. Because the state was in the process of choosing which lands it would request for the 104 million acres it was allotted by the statehood bill, the young man knew he had little time to waste. He quickly returned to his home village of Kotzebue and began telling his family and friends to file claims of ownership with the federal government or risk losing forever the lands their forefathers had occupied for thousands of years. Had William L. Iggiagruk Hensley never done anything else, his place in Alaskan history would be secure, because with this action he set off the chain of events that led, just five years later, to passage by congress of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), the bill that guaranteed permanent title of vast swaths of Alaska to its original inhabitants. ... Hensley would probably blush at being told this, but he is one of the towering figures in post-statehood Alaska. Were it not for his ceaseless efforts, ours would be a far different — and unquestionably far less egalitarian — state. So he’s earned some bragging rights. Hensley isn’t one to brag, but he has chosen to share his story in Fifty Miles from Tomorrow, an engagingly written account of his life from his childhood in a sod hut 10 miles from Kotzebue all the way to the highest halls of power in Washington, D.C. It’s not a rags-to-riches story, however. Rather, it’s the tale of how growing up on the land, immersed in a distinctive culture, gave him the strength and the values to fight for and save what matters the most.
Posted 7 February 2010; 5:15:35 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Books, Blogs and Publications, Circumpolar History, Circumpolar News, February10, North America, People
Elisapie Isaac: Mapping her musical landscape
(Robert Everett-Green/Globe and Mail, 6 February 2010) -- “I can’t write by a fireplace,” says Inuit singer Elisapie Isaac. “I need a window. I need to feel connected to something, to see the sky or whatever. I think it’s because I’m from this small town where you can see far. No matter what building I’m in, my inspiration is the window.” Isaac spent almost three years sitting by her window, so to speak, and the songs she found there became the substance of her recent solo recording debut, There Will Be Stars. After several years as the singing half of the Quebec electro-folk duo Taima, the 32-year-old performer and filmmaker (who began a short Canadian tour on Feb. 4 at Toronto’s Drake Hotel) has mapped out her own musical landscape. “I just wanted it to be sweet and warm, I wanted it to breathe,” she says of the album, which was produced by Éloi Painchaud. She’s talking mainly about the shape-shifting sounds on the record. The songs, by contrast, are often about hard, uncomfortable situations: the ragged end of a love affair; the intensity of a deep winter spent in a small Northern settlement (Salluit, in Nunavik); the dislocation many Inuit feel whether they stay in the North or head south, as Isaac did 10 years ago. “Tears and emotions, that’s what motivates me,” she says. ... “There are so many energies, I sometimes wonder, where do I go?” she says. “I was named after four different women. I used to think that was such a cool thing. But when you’re named after four different women, you sort of become those different woman. I thought it was such a cool thing, but it kind of messed me up.” A fine mess, and a fine album too.
Posted 7 February 2010; 1:10:32 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Arts and Artists, Canada, Circumpolar News, February10, North America, Nunavut, People
Russian Barents population decrease
(BarentsObserver, 5 February 2010) -- The North of Russia is under the threat of depopulation. Since the year 2000 the population in the Russian part of the Barents region decreased by 462,000, or by almost 11 percent. According to the yearly demographic report of the State Statistical Committee the Russian territories of the Barents region in the beginning of 2009 had 31 thousand inhabitants less than one year ago. That is 0.8 percent less than in 2008. In the three-year period from 2006 to 2008 the total population of the Russian Federation decreased by 317,000 people. This is approximately as much as the population of the biggest city in the Barents region; Arkhangelsk. During the ten-year period from 2000 to 2010, the population of the Russian Federation was reduced by almost 5 million citizens, or -3.4 %. At the same time the population in the Russian part of the Barents region declined by 54,000 people from 2006 to 2008, or by 1.4 per cent, according to the 2009 edition of the Demographic Yearbook of Russia. The biggest population decline in the ten-year period since 2000 was observed in Murmansk Oblast (by 10.4 percent), in Komi Republic (by 9.3 percent), and in Arkhangelsk Oblast (by 9.2 percent). The population of Karelia decreased 6.5 percent. One year ago, in the beginning of 2009, the total population of Barents Russia was 3,793,000 people. Today, according to the preliminary data of the State Statistical Committee the population in these five territories decreased again by 24,000. The greatest declines occured in Murmansk oblast and the Republic of Komi.
Posted 6 February 2010; 11:10:04 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, February10, Northwest Russia, Research, Russia, Social Issues
(Sveriges Radio International, 6 February 2010) -- The indigenous people of northern Scandinavia, the Sami, are celebrating their National Day today with events staged around Sweden and neighbouring countries. The Sami, or Lapp, are the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia, and today they number around 85,000. Twenty thousand live in Sweden, perhaps twice as many in Norway, and smaller numbers in northern Finland and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. The Sami are regarded as the oldest peoples of Europe. Many of Sweden's Sami now live in Stockholm, and one of the country's major celebrations of the Sami national day is at Skansen, Stockholm's outdoor cultural museum. After centuries of exploitation at the hands of their Scandinavian neighbours, today the Sami face far fewer problems than many indigenous peoples in other parts of the world. However they do still have problems including a fight for land rights - Unlike Norway and Finland, Sweden still refuses to sign the UN Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples - fearing that the non-Sami residents of northern Sweden would lose their land rights. Sami Day falls on February sixth because this date was when the first Sami congress was held in Norway in 1917 with Norwegian and Swedish Sami coming together for the first time to try and solve their problems collectively. The first time Sami National Day was celebrated was in 1993. See also "YLE, "Saturday is Sámi People's Day," 5 February 2010.
Posted 6 February 2010; 10:53:56 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Celebrations, Circumpolar News, February10, Indigenous Issues, Sweden
Slain Iceland polar bear was young and healthy 
Initial research of the carcass of the polar bear that was shot in Thistilfjördur, east Iceland, on January 27 show that the bear was a healthy female. Even though the bear was young, it had become independent from its mother, as reported by Keldur, the University of Iceland Institute for Experimental Pathology this week. Polar bear cubs follow their mothers the first 27 months of their lives. They are born in the bear’s lair in winter, usually in December or January, Fréttabladid reports. Detailed research of the bear’s teeth will determine its age accurately, but when its size—the bear was 173 centimeters long and weighed 138 kilos—is compared with measurements of polar bears from east Greenland, it appears to have been four years old. Further research, which is undertaken in cooperation with Danish scientists who have studied Greenlandic polar bears for years, will also determine whether the Thistilfjördur bear was infected by parasites. The animal’s skull and bones will be cleaned and preserved at the Icelandic Institute of Natural History. Click here to read more about the polar bear.
Posted 6 February 2010; 10:58:39 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, February10, Flora and Fauna, Iceland, North Atlantic
DELAWARE: Operation Arctic Vengence ready to mobilize
DELAWARE — In what military planners are calling Operation Arctic Vengeance, the Delaware National Guard is working diligently to prepare its forces to aid the state should the governor declare a state of emergency. ... The plan calls for the Delaware National Guard to set up a task force in each county. Each task force will consist of about 45 Soldiers, 15 Highly Mobile Multi-Wheeled Vehicles (Humvees), a Light-Medium Tactical Vehicle, and a wrecker.“This is where we shine,” said Maj. Gen. Frank Vavala, addressing leaders during a situation briefing. “This is where we show our value to the citizens of Delaware.”
Posted 6 February 2010; 10:48:33 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Disasters, etc., February10, Nordicity, United States
Joe Sixpack: Adventurer seeks to re-create centuries-old Arctic Ale
(Don Russell, Joe Sixpack/Philadelphia Daily News, 5 February 2010) -- IN 1852, the British government dispatched Royal Navy Cmdr. Edward Belcher and a fleet of five ships to the Canadian Arctic to search for the lost expedition of Sir John Franklin. They came up empty, and four of Belcher's ships — including the H.M.S. Resolute — were abandoned in the ice. Years later, the Resolute was discovered adrift, salvaged, returned to Britain and disassembled. Its timbers were used to craft a pair of matching desks for the queen of England and the president of the United States. If the story sounds familiar, that's because you may have seen it in the Nicolas Cage movie National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets. What you almost certainly have never heard, however, is the story of the ship's beer. A Bethlehem, Pa., homebrewer with a thirst for history has unearthed that story and will attempt to re-create the beer this summer during his own Arctic expedition. ... The beer was Allsopp's Arctic Ale, a bottled barleywine brewed in Burton, England. Made with just under 12 percent alcohol so as to survive the frigid temperatures of the north, it was described by Belcher as "a valuable antiscorbutic" for its ability to fight scurvy. ... Samuel Allsopp & Sons continued to brew the beer into the 20th century, but eventually the bottles dwindled and finally disappeared. ... Samuel Allsopp & Sons continued to brew the beer into the 20th century, but eventually the bottles dwindled and finally disappeared.
Posted 6 February 2010; 10:44:22 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar History, Circumpolar News, Expeditions, field trips, tours, February10, People
Gazprom delays Shtokman gas field three years
(Dmitry Zhdannikov/Globe and Mail, 5 February 2010) -- Moscow - Russia has delayed the start of its giant Arctic Shtokman gas field by three years to 2016 after a dip in European demand and a surge in North American shale gas output dampened its export prospects. Russian gas export monopoly OAO Gazprom said in a statement on Friday it had agreed with partners Total SA and Statoil ASA to delay pipeline gas production from Shtokman from 2013 to 2016. Liquefied natural gas output will begin in 2017 instead of the earlier planned 2014. The decision was made due to “changes in the market situation and particularly in the LNG market“. Shtokman, one of the world's largest gas fields, in the stormy Barents Sea, is expected to require $15-billion (U.S.) of investment in its first phase. Gazprom saw a slump in exports last year amid a global economic slowdown and due to a surge in unconventional gas supplies, such as gas extracted from shale, in the United States.
Posted 5 February 2010; 11:41:29 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Economic issues, February10, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources
Greenland MPs call for end to Danish political involvement
(Sermitsiaq via IceNews, 3 February 2010) -- The Danish parliament’s elected representatives for Greenland have declared that they are ready to begin negotiations aimed at discontinuing the semi-autonomous country’s involvement in Danish domestic politics. “This is a process we need to get started,” said Greenland MP Sofia Rossen. “This was something I said during the last election”. Rossen has not suggested a date for any withdrawal but claimed it would not happen until Greenland has been afforded full responsibility for the administration of its own domestic affairs. Sermitsiaq reports that the question of independence for both the Faroe Islands and Greenland is regularly debated in the Danish parliament, where the overseas territories are represented. Danish parliamentarians frequently question the fact that either region can use its elected representatives to determine the outcome of a close national election; while the territories themselves claim to be hamstrung by adhering to Danish political values which impinge on their national identities. Greenland has been under home-rule from Denmark since 1979, with more competencies being transferred to the local government in 2008. The present scenario sees the Danish Royal Government oversee Greenland’s foreign affairs, financial policy and security; with a DKK 3.4 billion (USD 633 million) subsidy each year: roughly DKK 60,000 (USD 11,300) per Greenlander per annum.
Posted 5 February 2010; 11:36:16 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, February10, Greenland, North Atlantic
Climate change causes wolverine decline across Canada
(Matt Walker/BBC News, 4 February 2010) -- The wolverine, a predator renowned for its strength and tenacious character, may be slowly melting away along with the snowpack upon which it lives. Research shows wolverine numbers are falling across North America. Their decline has been linked to less snow settling as a result of climate change. The study is the first to show a decline in the abundance of any land species due to vanishing snowpack. Details of the wolverine's decline are published in Population Ecology. The wolverine lives in boreal forest across Scandinavia, northern Russia, northern China, Mongolia and North America, where it ranges mostly across six provinces or territories of western Canada. This largest member of the weasel family eats carrion and food it hunts itself, including hares, marmots, smaller rodents and young or weakened ungulates. It has evolved for life on the snowpack, having thick fur and outsized feet that help it move across and hunt on snow. Wildlife biologist Dr Jedediah Brodie of the University of Montana, in Missoula, US, wondered how climate change might be having an impact on snowpack levels, and on the animals that depend on it. He had previously researched how declining levels of snow in the US Yellowstone National Park, caused by climate change, was changing the abundance of aspen trees and how elk feed on them. Dr Brodie and his colleague, Professor Eric Post of Pennsylvania State University, at University Park, US, gathered data on snowpack levels across six provinces or territories of Canada: Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan and the Yukon Territory. In all bar the Yukon, he found that snowpack depth declined significantly between 1968 and 2004. ... They found a striking correlation between declining snowpack and falling numbers of the predator. "In provinces where winter snowpack levels are declining fastest, wolverine populations tend to be declining most rapidly," the researchers wrote in the journal article. "Spring snowpack also appears to influence wolverine population dynamics." The researchers found only one territory, the Northwest Territories, where wolverine numbers are increasing. There, snowpack levels are declining but they remain much higher and less variable than in most other provinces.
Posted 5 February 2010; 10:44:16 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Climate change response, Conservation and Wildlife, February10, Flora and Fauna, North America
Nunavut proposes Baffin Island caribou survey
(CBC News, 4 February 2010) -- Nunavut wildlife biologists want to conduct the first extensive survey of caribou across Baffin Island as early as next year. Officials with Nunavut's Environment Department are proposing the idea in Baffin communities this year, with the hope that a survey could begin in 2011. "There's never ever been a population estimate for Baffin Island," Debbie Jenkins, the department's Baffin regional wildlife biologist, told CBC News. Government biologists have already conducted helicopter surveys of caribou on northern Baffin Island in 2008 and 2009. In those surveys, a total 170 caribou were counted in an area spanning more than 80,000 square kilometres. Jenkins said that seems like an alarmingly low number of caribou — and an estimate corroborated by anecdotes from local hunters and trappers organizations — but she said biologists need a more complete picture. "What we don't know is if this is indicative of the population of caribou, or if it's just indicative of that small area," she said. If it turns out the number of caribou from the existing surveys represents the island as a whole, Jenkins said conservation measures may have to be put in place. "With good foundation information, we can go ahead confidently with the communities, with our hunters, to discuss what options we have ahead of us to implement in terms of conservation measures, management measures," she said. But longtime hunters like Solomon Awa of Iqaluit said caribou populations are not necessarily in decline, but simply moving around the island. "There's a reason for that — the vegetation took a long time to grow after they have eaten them," he said.
Posted 5 February 2010; 8:15:43 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, February10, North America, Nunavut
Scant Arctic ice could mean summer "double whammy"
(Deborah Zabarenko, Environment/Reuters, 4 February 2010) -- Scant ice over the Arctic Sea this winter could mean a "double whammy" of powerful ice-melt next summer, a top U.S. climate scientist said on Thursday. "It's not that the ice keeps melting, it's just not growing very fast," said Mark Serreze, director of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center. In January, Arctic sea ice grew by about 13,000 square miles (34,000 sq km) a day, which is a bit more than one-third the pace of ice growth during the 1980s, and less than the average for the first decade of the 21st century. Arctic ice cover is important to the rest of the world because the Arctic is the globe's biggest weather-maker, sometimes dubbed Earth's air-conditioner for its ability to cool down the planet. More melting Arctic sea ice could affect this weather-making process.... If Arctic ice fails to build up sufficiently during the dark, cold winter months, it is likely to melt faster and earlier when spring comes, Serreze said by telephone from Colorado. "We've grown back ice in the winter, but that ice tends to be thin and that's the problem," he said. "You set yourself up for a world of hurt in summer. The ice that is there is also thinner than it was before and thinner ice simply takes less energy to melt out the next summer." With less of the Arctic sea covered in ice in winter, and with the existing ice thinner and more fragile than before, "you've got a double whammy going on," Serreze said.
Posted 5 February 2010; 7:04:59 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Arctic Ocean, Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, February10, Research
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