By Tom Fries The Arctic This Week – 23 June to 29 June 2012
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READS OF THE WEEK
If you’ve
only got a few minutes this week, spend your time on these particularly useful,
informative, creative or well-written pieces.
A nicely-written
article by Fred Weir in the Christian Science Monitor covers the strange
rise of Khanti-Mansiysk, and what it says about the Kremlin’s ideas for
Russia’s once and future oil cities.
Noteworthy
as well is this
plangent opinion piece on the challenges of the long-distance, city-country
relationship between Canada’s cities and its northern reaches, from the Ottawa
Citizen. Author Adam Goldenberg’s speechwriting credentials show through; it is
a moving piece.
A dry
but absolutely fascinating article published in Alaska Dispatch covers the
various constraints on US exports of LNG and what those constraints could mean
for the future of Alaska’s gas industry. Lots of interesting detail.
This is a quick
but informative “snack” from BusinessWeek covering Gazprom’s, and Russia’s,
role as a gas producer in a world where shale gas is coming on-line.
Finally, a fascinating
and outstanding article from Diane
Gray via Institute of the North covers the assets and potential future of
Manitoba’s CentrePort Canada, as well as Arctic shipping infrastructure
generally. It’s information-packed and fun to read.
BLOOD &
TREASURE
No single
theme emerged above the general din of military news this week, so we’ll just lead
with Russia and Japan, whose military heads met in Moscow to discuss
possibilities for cooperation (RIAN). The
two countries have disputed ownership of four islands, the Kuril Islands (RU) /
Northern Territories (JP), since WWII. Prime Minister Medvedev is planning a
visit to two of them: Etorofu and Kunashiri (Japan
Times). Russia also seized a ship carrying sea cucumbers near to the
disputed islands this week, though details on who owns the ship and what
further plans might be have been tough to come by (Naharnet).
The larger country’s famed Northern Fleet, once the nation’s pride, may be part
of an expanded strategy for Arctic supremacy as well (windowonheartland.net),
and Viktor Chirkov, commander of Russia’s navy, indicated this week that the
Russian military has plans for 5-6 additional aircraft carriers to be
constructed after 2020 (BO).
Coming across the finish line earlier, the new Borey class submarine Alexander Nevsky should be commissioned by the end of this year (RIAN).
Meanwhile the Murmansk regional fishery committee is lobbying for another
rescue vessel to be responsible for waters around Svalbard (BN), a good choice as cruise
traffic in the far North is already growing by leaps and bounds (BO).
Russia’s
military relationships with its other neighbors are a mixed bag. President
Putin has responded with vague signs of disapproval to the idea that Finland
might join NATO (RT), while Russian
opposition to the idea may actually be causing a small swing in the opposite
direction in the opinions of the Finnish public (YLE).
Finland is also preparing to welcome a new defense minister (YLE)
later this year, while sustaining its wait-and-see approach to the decision to
jointly monitor Iceland’s airspace (IceNews).
Russia meanwhile conducts its flyovers of Canadian military installations under
the Open Skies Treaty (Yahoo
news), and Russia’s military activity is apparently seen by Canada’s
Department of National Defense as non-threatening (Canada.com).
Despite the
absence of threat from Russia, Canada is goosing its military might with a new
fleet of ATVs, a new Arctic base, a fleet of offshore patrol ships and a new
Polar-class icebreaker. All of this, if and when it happens, will of course be
twice as expensive as it is already planned, and if you’d like to know which
CEOs will be sending their children to Canada’s affordable yet high-quality
colleges on the commissions from the projects, check out this
article from defensenews.com. For a more tempered take on the nature of Canada’s
plans, enjoy this
skeptical article from Eurasia Review. Michael Byers and Stewart Webb
offered a wonderfully detailed assessment of the folly of keeping Canadian
airplane manufacturers out of the bidding for search-and-rescue contracts (Byers’s
blog), while Canada’s Coast Guard assets are already preparing to
demonstrate the country’s vigilant engagement with its North this summer (Telegram).
Across the
border in Alaska, the US Coast Guard seems to be patching together fleets with
bubble gum and duct tape to prepare for its various missions in the Arctic this
summer (fuelfix.com)
while, in an announcement that comes as a surprise to me, the decision to move
the 18th squadron’s F-16s from Eielson Air Force Base (Fairbanks)
south to Elmendorf AFB (Anchorage) has been, at the least, postponed (AD).
A recent post
in The Daily makes it seem as though America is falling way behind other
Arctic nations in its capacities, but it doesn’t seem like any nation is
serving as a role model at this point.
THE POLITICAL SCENE
The conflict
in Syria continued to embroil Russia’s Arctic port of Murmansk this week. Early
on, the nature of the cargo on board was disputed (RIAN), with a
series of claims from Russia that the helicopters were part of an earlier
agreement, were old models, were disassembled, etc. (RIAN).
Interesting to note that the ship stopped not in Murmansk to be re-flagged but,
instead, in the port of Roslyakovo, a military port between Murmansk and
Severomorsk (BO).
Russia’s southern neighbor China continues to make its displeasure with Norway
felt, this time by denying a visa to former Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik
(Global
Post). The world’s most population meanwhile continues to express its views
on the Arctic as a spot for cooperation and collaboration via China
Daily.
According to
Reuters,
Mother Russia is making a major shift towards openness to foreign engagement
with its hydrocarbon sector in an effort to share in the benefits of Western
technology. Meanwhile Russia’s FSB – the domestic security agency – is a matter
of some concern to the European Commission of Democracy Through Law (BO).
Next-door neighbor Norway is opening an Arctic Research Center focused on the
various thorny challenges of Arctic oil drilling (Fox
Business). It’s also making a friendly overture to Russia by opening a
consulate in the Russian town of Nikel, just across the border (BO).
Elsewhere in
Scandinavia, Greenland and Denmark have submitted their claim to part of the
Arctic seabed to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (IceNews),
and a meeting between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Finnish Foreign
Minister Erkki Tuomioja on confidential classified information-sharing garnered
press attention as well (Atlantic
Council). It was the first visit of a Secretary of State to Finland since
1999 (YLE),
and on the agenda were discussions of Syria, Afghanistan and Iran, as well as
meetings with Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen and President Sauli Niinistö (YLE).
The foreign minister next door, Sweden’s Carl Bildt, went over his thoughts for
the Arctic Council’s future (among other topics), including taking more
concrete decisions, improving PR and uniting as a common Arctic voice behind as
many issues as possible (EOTA).
The full text of his speech is at Carleton University in Canada is available here. Icelanders
determined on Saturday that their new/old President would be Olafur Ragnar
Grimsson, sitting now in his fifth term (IceNews),
and the tiny country announced as well that it had made its second early
repayment to the IMF ($483.7mn) to illustrate its aggressive progress back to a
healthy economy (IceNews).
Moving to
North America, the ISN
blog took an unusual tack on North American power in the Arctic, suggesting
that Canada is far ahead of the game. Most of the press seems to feel instead
that Canada is woefully unprepared for its role as an Arctic leader in a
physical sense. In a recent survey, Canada fell eleven spots to place 51 in
worldwide rankings of government openness and transparency (CBC),
while premiers of the country’s three northern territories expressed their
desire to participate more directly in the activities of the Arctic Council (EOTA).
Budget cuts to Parks Canada are meanwhile causing major concern among some of
the organization’s former leadership (G&M),
and a general decline in support for and investment in Canadian science is the
subject of a new book by Jane Jacobs, reviewed this week in
the Vancouver Observer.
On a smaller
scale, a Nunavut policy intended to give Inuit-owned businesses encouragement
to participate in the government contracting process came in for substantial
criticism this week (CBC),
in particular the apparently loose way in which “Inuit firm” status is
determined (NN).
Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. expressed an eagerness to work with the Government of
Nunavut to fix issues in the contracting process (NN).
The Government of Nunavut is also embroiled in wage-benefit negotiations with
its unionized employees, but it looks as though a tentative agreement was
reached this past week (NN),
while Nunavut Tunngavik was awarded nearly $15mn in damages from the federal
government for failure to meet all the criteria set forth in the Nunavut Land
Claims Agreement (CBC).
In the
United States, the debate over the wisdom of joining the UN Convention on the
Law of the Sea continued (PRI),
though it took a back seat to bigger political news in the country. The Supreme
Court upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but governor of
Alaska Sean Parnell remains firmly opposed to the law, making Alaska’s future
adherence to it – or lack thereof – an uncertain matter (AD).
Alaska’s exasperation with the federal government also showed up this week in
an argument over the requirements of the Voting Rights Act (AD),
but at the same time Alaska Representative Don Young touted the $1bn in federal
money he was able to bring home to support the Alaska Railroad (AD).
The Department of Justice also approved Alaska’s hotly-contested new
voting-district map, clearing the way for planning for the fall round of
elections (AD),
while the Alaska Coastal Management Program continues to be the subject of
push-and-pull between those eager to develop and those advocating more caution
(KTOO).
ENERGY
Some interesting
analysis of the future of energy in a global sense came out this week, with
Statoil’s chief oil economist predicting that demand for the thick, black stuff
will peak in about 2030 (AB),
while natural gas demand will grow 60% by 2040 (naturalgaseurope.com).
An analyst looking at Canada’s future as an exporter was sober in his
assessment (Telegram),
while Morgan Stanley is predicting a general decline in commodity prices that
will be bad news for Russia and other countries reliant on their exports (RIAN). The Arctic
Council states are meanwhile developing a joint agreement to deal with oil
slicks in the Arctic (VOR).
This week also
saw an explosion of news on drilling in US waters occasioned by the departure
of Shell’s rig the Kulluk from its
temporary residence in Seattle and by the government’s release of its five-year
oil-leasing plan. Jennifer Dlouhy of the Houston Chronicle has been providing
really commendable, high-quality coverage, including: a post on Shell’s efforts
to reassure regulators and environmentalists of its ability to deal with any –
god forbid – spill in the Chukchi or Beaufort (fuelfix.com);
a post on the various concessions made (and not made) by Shell, and to whom
they went (fuelfix.com);
a general overview of the situation (San
Francisco Chronicle); and brief coverage of Shell’s testing of its capping
stack, intended as a first line of defense in case of a blowout (fuelfix.com).
That capping stack was good enough for the Bureau of Safety and Environmental
Enforcement (Offshore),
and on Wednesday two massive rigs left Seattle for northern waters (ADN).
Fantastic pictures of the event came from @pewenvironment
and – with the Space Needle in the background – from @westseattleblog. The Coast Guard
established a “temporary safety zone around the nineteen vessels associated
with Arctic drilling” on their way out (gpo.gov).
Greenpeace of course has been preparing to do what it can to monitor Shell’s
activity, but the Esperanza – part of
the planned fleet – is held up for the moment for propeller repairs (Seward
Phoenix Log).
A couple of
ruminations on the wisdom or folly of Arctic drilling were also released this
week. Chuck Clusen at the National Resources Defense Council delivered himself
of an exhaustively-detailed
recap of the international debate over the past months, and a similar
overview of the discussion’s different moving parts came from Nature.
A more novel article on the details of seismic surveying and its potential
impact on marine life came from Anchorage
Daily News, and an impassioned piece inspired by Subhankar Banerjee’s
recent talk in Seattle was released in the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer.
Meanwhile
the political football of drilling in US Arctic waters was punted aggressively
back and forth; The Arctic Institute’s Kathrin Keil covered
the game with erudition and style. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar
called a newly-released plan to auction three leases off of Alaska towards the
end of the 2012-2017 period – Chukchi in 2016, Beaufort in 2017 (KTUU) – “cautious but forward-looking.” The National
Resources Defense Council called the plan “too aggressive,” while the American
Petroleum Institute called it “too restrictive” (Reuters).
And that captures pretty much all that you need to know about politics in the
US generally these days, Arctic or otherwise. Should you wish to read the
Secretary’s complete remarks, they’re available at the
DOI website. The government’s policy of “targeted leases” is intended to
evince a more holistic approach to drilling decisions, including indigenous
peoples’ concerns and environmental concerns in the cost-benefit analysis (Christian
Science Monitor). The city of Adak seems ready to advertise itself as the
new home for support hub for offshore drilling (alaskapublic.org),
and TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline is inching forward in its US section (Platts).
Almost as an afterthought, an interesting article covering the national
political and regulatory hurdles that will have to be cleared for Alaskan LNG
to be shipped to Asia, specifically, came
out in Alaska Dispatch – lots to learn here.
Thanks are
due to Anna Kireeva for a detailed,
well-curated overview of Russia’s multi-front efforts to plan for Gazprom’s
future (Bellona). In a larger sense, Gazprom’s role as a natural-gas powerhouse
may be threatened by growing worldwide production of shale gas (BusinessWeek).
On the Shtokman front, further discussions continue to yield nothing solid.
Aleksandr Medvedev said this week that the configuration would certainly be
changed, but you can see how deeply all the parties are enjoying the
negotiations in the accompanying photo in this article
from Barents Observer. Barents
Nova reported Medvedev’s announcement of “just a little more time” until
details are refined and revealed, while the
Moscow Times reported a significant change, in that rights to market
Shtokman’s production will move from being Gazprom-only to being shared among
the project company’s partners.
In what is
rapidly becoming my favorite topic, Russia-Japanese cooperation on oil took a
big step forward with the signing of a contract between Japan Oil, Gas and
Metals National Corp (JOGMEC) and Russia's Gazprom Neft to conduct a geological
survey in Eastern Siberia near the ESPO pipeline (Asahi
Shinbun). Such efforts should help Japan diversify away from its reliance
on Middle Eastern oil, which currently makes up 90% of its imports (Sacramento
Bee). In other news from Russia, it looks as though pre-sales of gas from
Novatek’s Yamal project will be used in part to finance the planned $20bn Yamal
LNG complex (Reuters),
while TNK-BP is working on reviving fields in Western Siberia with
hard-to-recover reserves (Reuters).
The Wall
Street Journal published an article on increased Arctic drilling activity
that focused largely on Norway’s plans for new license rounds, big news not
only because of the 72 blocks in the Barents Sea but also because of their
proximity to the North Pole at the 84th parallel (arcticportal.org).
The country expects the licenses to be hotly contested (Reuters).
Because many of the proposed licenses are close to the Russian boundary, there
are whispers that Rosneft and Lukoil are both likely to be involved in the
round (BO).
No surprise, as Rosneft will be opening a subsidiary in Norway (oilandgaseurasia.com).
The Norwegian Polar Directorate is also undertaking seismic exploration north
of Svalbard this summer (BO).
Amidst all this excitement, a strike by 700 of Statoil’s offshore personnel is
causing the shutdown of multiple facilities and the loss of an estimated
$25.1mn per day (AB,
IceNews).
Statoil is also considering a dramatic reduction in its office staff (AB).
Elsewhere in Scandinavia, Iceland’s Landsvirkjun signed a big deal to provide
geothermal and hydro energy to a silicon-metal production plant in the
country’s North (IceNews).
MINING
In mining
this week, we heard that Lukoil is joining hands with Arkhangelsk oblast to
develop, among other things, the oblast’s diamond resources (diamondne.ws).
In Canada, coal deposits on Ellesmere Island may have a future (EOTA),
with Canada Coal’s CEO making promises to stay away from the 50 million year
old Axel Heiberg fossil forest (NN).
Encouraging results in Agnico-Eagle’s Meliadine gold mine are meanwhile
inspiring increased investment by the company, an economic boon for Nunavut (NN).
Areva’s proposed Kiggavik uranium mine near Baker Lake, Nunavut is meanwhile
facing continued challenge at an environmental and social level from
Nunavummiut Makitagunarningit and others (NN),
and citizen opposition to a proposed quarry in Yukon is rising as well (Whitehorse
Star). Elsewhere, the reopening of the Nahanni Range road, washed out in
recent floods, means that the CanTung mine in Yukon is back at work (natungsten.com).
BUSINESS & INDUSTRY
[Shipping]
Record low
ice on the waters of the Northern Sea Route allowed oil tankers Indiga and Varzuga to set sail from Murmansk to Chukotka this week (BO).
Such increased activity will, in what is perhaps not shocking news, increase
the demand for icebreakers to support it (Institute
of the North). Meanwhile a really outstanding article from Diane
Gray via Institute of the North on the assets and potential future of
Manitoba’s CentrePort Canada, as well as on Arctic shipping infrastructure
generally, is information-packed and fun to read.
[Fishing]
The gist of an article
from HeraldNet on the massive decline in king salmon numbers in Alaska this
year is that we don’t know what’s going on, really, while Eye
on the Arctic highlighted the interesting argument taking place between
sport fishers and commercial fishers over who has access to the remaining fish.
In Murmansk, a fisheries research institute has been accused of using its
research-catch license for commercial activities (BN), but the city apparently has no
fish for itself out of its massive yearly hauls; it all disappears elsewhere (Russia
Beyond the Headlines). In Greenland, the fight with the International
Whaling Commission over appropriate catch quotas for the coming years appears
increasingly acrimonious (NN).
Finally, if
you’re interested in the wonky details of fisheries policy, you’ll want to know
who was appointed to the US Commerce Department’s regional fisheries councils (NOAA).
SOCIAL
Food
security in Nunavut and more generally in Canada’s North is a persistent issue,
though attention to the protests seems to be waning. Nunavut Premier Eva Aariak
met with other officials to seek out a long-term solution this week (Canada.com)
in advance of the upcoming meeting of the Food Security Coalition, but they have
a long way to go. AANDC stats on food prices
show that a standard basket of food (one week, family of four) in Coral Harbour
ran $442 in 2010; the same was available for $242 at the same time in Winnipeg.
Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett strongly criticized the Tories’ handling of, and
talking points on, the Nutrition North Canada program (NN),
including federal health minister Leona Aglukkaq (CBC).
Relatedly, Mayor of Iqaluit Madeleine Redfern and Green Party leader Elizabeth
May met in Saskatoon to try to bridge a deep divide on the value of the
traditional Inuit seal hunt (Nunavut News)
both as a source of food and income, but apparently with more acrimony than mutual
understanding. In Whitehorse, flooding has been the cause of a (hopefully
temporary) food shortage, and one city councilor has been using it as a goad to
encourage increased contributions to local food banks (CBC).
Next door in Alaska, too much food – or the wrong kind of it – is the problem,
but recent stats indicate that, at least among youth, obesity rates may have
fallen from a high of 38% to 36% (AD).
Deserving of
a separate paragraph is this plangent opinion piece on the challenges of the
long-distance, city-country relationship between Canada’s cities and its
northern reaches (OC).
Author Adam Goldenberg’s speechwriting credentials show through; it is a moving
piece.
Other health
issues present unique problems in a northern, remote context. The recall of
tuberculosis vaccine stocks in Nunavik has left health officials scrambling for
resourceful alternatives (NN),
while cases of multi-drug resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in the
Northwest Territories are beginning to make the news (CBC).
High levels of mercury in ringed seal liver are the subject of a public-health
campaign asking women of childbearing age in Nunavut to avoid the otherwise
highly valued “country food” (NN).
In the face of all this, the National Aboriginal Health Organization in Ottawa
said its last goodbyes (NN).
Across the border in Alaska, it’s domestic violence that made news this week (EOTA)
as part of a newly-released
study focused on epidemiology within native families.
Reliable
infrastructure is a component of healthy communities, and a meeting of the
premiers of Canada’s three northern territories made that obvious; “When we
looked at ways to reduce the cost of living it all boiled down to
infrastructure — either roads or airports or other means of transportation,”
said Bob McLeod, premier of the Northwest Territories (NN).
A small victory in this department was the successful repairing of a washed-out
airport runway at Qikiqtarjuaq in Nunavut (NN),
while the introduction of competition in home internet service providers has
meant that Northwestel’s prices have magically come down (NN).
Far away in Yakutsk, ground has been broken on a new 180MW natural gas power
plant (VOR), and the
rise of the city of Khanti-Mansiysk was the subject of a fascinating
article in the Christian Science Monitor.
On the media
front, the Strategic Alliance of Broadcasters for Aboriginal Reflection in
Canada released what will doubtless be a helpful guide to all of us covering
terms commonly used in reporting on aboriginal issues; for instance, what is
the proper usage of the term “First Nation”? The Jane Glassco fellows’ research
on successful leaders in Canada’s North may hold keys to successful advancement
of the northern territories (NN), while the
Gwich’in Tribal
Council, representing 2500 people and controlling more than 16,000 square
kilometers in NWT and Yukon, have elected Robert Alexie Jr, who ran focusing in
part on transparency in council decisionmaking, as their new president (NN).
ENVIRONMENT,
SCIENCE and WILDLIFE
This week, researchers
in Sweden predicted a worst-case temperature increase of 8 degrees Celsius by
the end of the century in Finnish Lapland (EOTA),
while a blog post from
Jason Box looked at worryingly low reflectivity on the Greenland ice sheet and
the Guardian offered a concise,
clearly-explained overview of the latest data on sea ice extent and volume,
neither of which is looking good. Elsewhere, thanks are due to Susan Evans,
whose detailed explanation of the thinking and methodology behind the recent
RACER report from the WWF is informative and persuasive (climateprep.org).
I’d also like to point to the blog “Arctic research” which provides, I have to
say, delightfully engaging posts with good pictures. It’s not the most amazing
writing or the best photography, but the stories are personal and engaging,
including this
one on looking for moth larvae in northern Scandinavia.
In terms of
specific science and technology, it looks like an advanced satellite system is
about to be deployed in the service of ice-monitoring in the Baltic and Arctic
to assist with icebreakers and marine construction (hydro-international.com),
but I could be misinterpreting this. Similar efforts to improve dynamic
positioning systems are taking place in Canada (worldmaritimenews.com),
while cleverly-wrought unmanned marine vehicles (they look like robots surfing)
are being increasingly used to gather important ocean data in a cost-effective
manner (NOAA).
Forest fire
season is furious this year, with 17 new fires reported in Alaska last weekend
from lightning strikes (EOTA)
and 18 shortly thereafter in the Northwest Territories, for a total of 49 in
the NWT (EOTA).
In Labrador, a couple of communities have been evacuated because of nearby
fires (CBC),
but in Alaska the end of the week brought better weather for firefighting
efforts (EOTA).
An
expedition to collect plant life around southern Baffin Island’s Soper River is
chronicled in fascinating detail by Nunatsiaq
News and the Chronicle
Herald, and the joy of field research really comes through in both articles.
Sad results on polar bears on Svalbard suggest that populations there are
dwindling or moving elsewhere; only five hibernating individuals were
identified on Kongsøya (BO).
Meanwhile the argument between aboriginal peoples and researchers over the
actual size of Canada’s polar bear populations continues (EOTA).
In Yukon, ordinary bears are a growing problem that is proving tough to solve (Whitehorse
Star), but that also provides opportunities for elderly Labrador retrievers
to demonstrate doggy heroism (Whitehorse
Star).
In marine
life, the fifth annual Celebration of the Seal took place in the Canadian North
(US
Politics Today, oddly), and the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board and
Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans are preparing for feedback on a
proposed narwhal management plan (NN).
Meanwhile there’s growing anger that Greenland is apparently serving whale
meat, caught under rules that permit for subsistence hunting only, to people in
restaurants (Guardian).
Craig
Medred in Alaska Dispatch went to extraordinary lengths to chronicle the
myriad variables behind this year’s collapse of the king salmon run, while
sleeper sharks in Alaskan waters are looking increasingly like the culprits
behind tales of Nessie-style monsters (AD).
Finally, in winged creatures, we learned this week that populations of geese in
the Canadian Arctic are growing while populations of shorebirds decline (CBC)
and that, at a “personal” level, the cries of a distressed chick from Alaska’s
wonderful LoonCam family were the cause for numerous distressed calls from
around the United States (AD).
THE SPORTING LIFE
Sports news
this week was all over the map, though the undoubted favorite was a weird,
otherworldly, captivating article and video on Nipwitz, “hardcore Finnish
free-ski stylists” (Atlantic
Cities), followed closely by a quick photo series of a game of roller derby
in Yukon (Whitehorse
Star). A dry,
just-barely-this-side-of-polite article from the CBC covered the setting of
a new national sports policy in Canada and the associated hoopla. On the other
side of the spectrum, a
moving article about compensation to be delivered to those families who
lost dog teams in the slaughter of sled dogs in the 1950s and ‘60s in Québec,
and about the tensions arising from those payments, is matter-of-factly but
beautifully delivered by Jane George in Nunatsiaq News.
THE GRAB BAG
A collection
of entertaining, weird or informative news that fits nowhere else…
The crash of
a Russian military plane in Karelia seems to have endangered neither lives nor
property on the ground (ITAR-TASS).
DELIGHTFUL:
I’ve always felt like Halifax is where I belong, but have been hard-pressed to
explain why. Now I know, thanks to the Globe & Mail’s “What
Kind of Canadian are You?” quiz.
Yet one more
candidate for Congress is convinced that President Obama has been throwing
islands at Russia’s feet (care2.com).
If this story were even 2% less ridiculous, if would have died long ago.
CBC
North has been recognized with a couple of recent awards. Congratulations,
folks!
FANTASTIC:
An Arctic
Exploration timeline, nicely put together by Woods Hole.
Who’s ready
for some seal meat prepared by top chefs from Newfoundland and Labrador (CBC)?
The Lena
Pillars National Park in the Sakha Republic is on UNESCO’s list of nominations
as a world heritage site (RIAN).
COOL: A 700
year old ship has been discovered sunken off of Sweden’s coast (IceNews).
The question is: ought the money be spent to excavate it?
A circle
dance with 15,293 people (!!!!!) in Yakutsk set a new Guinness World Record (@yakutia).
A 13-hour
live-streamed program covering a summer-solstice train ride from Helsinki to
Rovaniemi drew almost half a million viewers (YLE).
NOTEWORTHY:
Ruminations on a growing “industry” of flattening the lives of aboriginal
peoples in the Arctic down to one dimension were the substance of a
nice blog post/book review from Tim Querengesser and also a sharp
editorial from TAI’s own Alison Weisburger this week.
Nobody seems
to have noticed a 6.6 earthquake off of Kamchatka (Khaleej
Times).
HOLLYWOOD:
Tom Cruise is filming a new sci-fi pic in Iceland. (Daily
Mail)
Alaska’s
Eklutna cemetery is an amazing mixture of Orthodox and native tradition (NPR).
Yakutia is
attempting to deal with its illegal marijuana-growing problem by replacing it
with…worse marijuana (RIAN).
NUTTY
NORWEGIANS: I mean, it’s tough for Norwegians NOT to get carried away by
Swedish pop star Robyn and just take their clothes off and run into the woods.
Isn’t it? (The Local)
Mia Bennett
provided a nice post on the idea of having Vladivostok as a second or third
Russian capital (EOTA).
An ambitious
electrician in Yakutia nicked 2.5mn rubles’ worth of gold bars from a bank in
which he was repairing some wiring (RIAN).
PHOTOS & VIDEOS
I am
seriously considering the purchase of an iPhone purely so that I might join the
Instagram community and take advantage of great photos like these, from yask76
(1, 2, 3, 4), and these, from uhellet, cowgirrl3, and rosemarydonut.
Flickr also
plays host to a number of great northern photographers, professional and
amateur, including Sea Surface OA
Arctic Cruise (note: worst possible username), DnV Photo (1,
2,
3,
4),
Swansea
University and Clare Kines (1,
2,
3,
4,
5).
Other photos
came from Twitter user @JR_North_of_60,
sustainablework on ow.ly, and, of course,
heart-melting pictures of Yakutian laika puppies from @yakutia.
Let me also
point to a library of historic
polar images provided by the Scott Polar Research Institute – thanks for
putting this together!
A quick photo album
of some prehistoric rock art from Alta, Norway – a UNESCO world heritage site.
A photo
from Nunatsiaq News of a couple getting married in Arctic Bay.
Congratulations!
Plus video of
a luxuriating polar bear (via oneworldoneocean) and of ducks
diving for mussels (via BBCEarth). I’d like to point out that you can watch
such amusing things happen live at the Alaska
SeaLife Center in Seward, which I cannot recommend strongly enough. Should
you wish to have access to several different livecams, including
Arctic-appropriate ones, you can find them here.
ABBREVIATION KEY
Aftenbladet
(AB)
Alaska
Dispatch (AD)
Anchorage
Daily News (ADN)
Barents Nova
(BN)
Barents
Observer (BO)
BusinessWeek
(BW)
Eye on the
Arctic (EOTA)
Fairbanks
News Miner (FNM)
Globe and
Mail (G&M)
Moscow Times
(MT)
Natural Gas
Europe (NGE)
New York
Times (NYT)
Northern
News Service Online (NNSO)
Northern
Public Affairs (NPA)
Nunatsiaq
News (NN)
Ottawa
Citizen (OC)
RIA Novosti
(RIAN)
Russia Today
(RT)
Voice of
Russia (VOR)
Wall Street
Journal (WSJ)
Washington
Post (WP)
Winnipeg
Free Press (WFP)
