Qaanaaq won’t help hunters anymore
The municipality of Qaanaaq in north Greenland told local hunters this month that it intends to stop giving them any more money.
Qaanaaq’s hunters have been faced with hard times on the land, which they say is due to climate change. The municipality had been helping them out.
But on Jan. 8, Qaanaaq leaders informed local hunters that they would no longer help them because "the good season for hunting and fishing is starting."
However, Qaanaaq hunters still say they feel the negative impacts of climate change. Ice near Siorapaluk, north of Qaanaaq, is still not strong enough to maintain the weight of a dogteam.
Supiaq Inuit usher in 2003 with a big bash
Pacific Alaskan Inuit sure know how to start off the new year in style, with their rousing Nuu’ikutaq (Supiaq for "new year program"), a traditional New Year’s celebration that runs from the Russian Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7 to Epiphany, which begins Jan. 18.
But the big "Night of Nuu’ikutaq" bash was reserved for the Russian New Year. According to the Julian Calendar, it fell on Jan. 14 this year.
The Night of the Nuu’ikutaq generally begins slowly and builds to a crescendo as villagers throw out the old and prepare to start their new year with a clean slate, the Anchorage Daily News reports.
The night begins as a masked player portraying New Year walks around with his policeman, or "M.P." The Old Year, in a bird-beak mask, joins in, followed by 12 women in white who represent every month of the new year.
Three "old ladies" (men disguised as women) portray the last months of the old year, and, wearing burlap skirts, hoods, masks and long cardboard bird beaks, they harass the crowd, teasing, flirting and yelling. This scene is repeated 12 times, once for each month of the year.
The New Year finally hits the Old Year with a paddle, marking the beginning of the end for him and the old ladies. They resist, but they’re dragged out until only one remains.
Then a shot is heard outside the door. The Old Year returns, is dragged away and a second shot rings out. The third shot deals the final blow. Then everyone sings "God Grant You Many Years" and dances a waltz of forgiveness for the old year’s sins.
A shorter version of this New Year’s celebration was recently held at the Anchorage Native Heritage Centre in Anchorage, Alaska.
Alaska sees less ice than before
Open water off Alaska’s Seward Peninsula is reflecting warmer-than-average temperatures at a time of year when ice and snow should be keeping things cool.
Scientists from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Centre recently confirmed there has been less ice on northern Alaskan waters than at any time over the past 20 years, with an "unusually extensive retreat of ice in the Beaufort, Chukchi, East Siberian and Laptev seas" noted during August 2002.
"August 2002 appears different from other low ice extent years in that ice has retreated significantly beyond the historical mean extent in both the Pacific and Atlantic sectors," the scientists said.
In September 2002, the ice on the Arctic Ocean reached record lows. Ice extended over only 5.27 million square kilometers of the Arctic Ocean — seven to nine million square kilometers is the normal minimum. At its lowest point, ice covered an area measuring only 3.6 million square kilometers.
September’s concentration — or the surface area where there was ice present — was 17 per cent below normal and nine per cent below the previous low record, set in 1998.
Using data collected by various methods since 1950, the National Snow and Ice Data Center concluded that six of the 10 years with the least Arctic ice extent have occurred since 1990. With a 20 per cent reduction in the annual sea ice expected by 2050, this might mean there could be no ice at all in these regions during the summer months within 50 years.
Cold winter kills in Moscow
The Interfax news agency reports that more than 200 people were injured this Tuesday because of slippery conditions in Moscow. One pedestrian was hurt by a fallen icicle. He was hospitalized. Another seven people were taken to hospital for exposure to the cold.
The death toll for this winter season in Moscow already stands at 298.
China to build research station on Svalbard Islands
China’s first Arctic Research Station will be located in Longyearbyen, capital of Norway’s Svalbard Islands.
The "People’s Daily" says China will build the first scientific survey station this summer near the North Pole, so that its scientists can be stationed there year-round, conducting in-depth research related to the Arctic.
China previously built a temporary research base on the Svalbard Islands. However, the new station will serve as a three-year monitoring and telecommunications station for Chinese scientists involved in research on the environment, climate, glaciers and biology in the Arctic region.
In 2001, the Chinese held a solemn flag-raising ceremony at the site of the planned station to the tune of "March of the Volunteers," China’s national anthem.
To Greenland in a raft?
The Halifax Daily News reports a team of British adventurers plan to leave Halifax, Nova Scotia, this summer in an attempt to cross the North Atlantic via the Arctic Circle in an open inflatable boat.
The five-man crew hopes to start the 6,600-kilometre crossing in late July. There will be no shelter in the open boat during the four-week trip, and the 11-metre boat can carry only about 4,000 litres of fuel, so the crew plans to complete the journey in four segments: Halifax to Battle Harbour, Labrador, then on to Nanortalik, Greenland; Reykjavik, Iceland; and finally Cape Wrath, Scotland.
"God willing, we’ll have good weather and not too much ice off Greenland," one of the organizers said.
Iceland’s Thule beer uses Vikings for promo
The Icelandic ad agency, "Gott fólk," is touting Iceland’s Thule beer with a television ad campaign, called "Best in the World."
The most successful of its 11 commercials is called "Beautiful Women" (or "Íslensk fegurd"). In it, two men discuss the many pageants that Icelandic beauty queens have won, and they conclude it’s evidence that Vikings took the most beautiful women for themselves when they pillaged their way through the British Isles 1,000 years ago.
The beer ad is the first ever from Iceland to appear worldwide on television specials presenting the world’s most amusing commercials and it recently won a prestigious award an ad competition. "Gott fólk" says the ad campaign has been very successful and has increased sales of Thule beer by 25 per cent last year, making it the second most popular brand in Iceland.
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