January 5, 2012

Arctic Sovereignty

Russia's Next Face Off on Ice (January 4, 2012): Team Canada's heartbreaking defeat at the World Junior Hockey semifinals in Calgary has many Canadians thinking ruefully about their Russian rivals on ice: the Russian juniors beat the Canadians in the gold medal game last year too, and now Canada will miss the finals altogether. Fans can only hope for better luck next year. While they do, Canadians would be wise to begin paying attention to another Russian rivalry on ice: Vladimir Putin's aggressive new push to expand Russian arctic sovereignty claims.

International

Russia Trade Ban Would Have ‘Huge Implications’ for Seal Industry: Minister (January 5, 2012): Ban could spell the end of Canada’s seal hunt, say activists A trade ban on harp seal products being considered by Russia would violate international trade agreements and would not bode well for Canada’s seal industry, says the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Custom Union of Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus have told the World Trade Organization (WTO) that they could impose a ban on the importation of raw and tanned harp seal pelts from Greenland and Canada as early as Jan. 1. Russia receives up to 90 percent of Canada’s exports of seal pelts.

Russia opens new Europe-Asia trade route (January 4, 2012): Russia has opened up a new trade route that halves the distance between Europe and Asia. The Northern Sea Route goes round the top of Eurasia, rather than the traditional route via the Suez Canal, passing India and China. The sea along Russia’s Arctic coast freezes solid in the winter, which has made the passage impractical for commercial traffic until recently. But as Russia expands its fleet of nuclear-powered ice-breakers, traffic is increasing.

Regional

Call for applications (January 4, 2012): Applications are now being accepted for the Age-Friendly Newfoundland and Labrador (AFNL) Grants Program. Funding is available to assist incorporated municipalities, Inuit community governments and reserves, and seniors’ organizations and retiree groups in planning for an aging population. A total of $200,000 will be distributed to municipalities and organizations throughout the province.

Canada's most expensive city to rent might surprise you (January 5, 2012): Canada’s coolest Arctic city is also one of its hottest rental markets. That’s led Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, to record the highest average two-bedroom rent in Canada -- $2,265, according to the latest figures from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). The national average was $835.  No other city seems to come close in terms of average rent, according to the CMHC’s Housing Observer report. The next highest was Yellowknife at $1,486 per month and then Toronto, at $1,123.

Veteran Nunavut civil servant dies in London, Ont. (January 4, 2012): Rev. Mike Ferris, 68, a veteran civil servant in the eastern Arctic who served for many years within the governments of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, died suddenly Dec. 24 at University Hospital in London, Ont. Ferris served as Baffin regional superintendent for the NWT Department of Municipal and Community Affairs throughout most of the 1980s and 1990s.

Nunavut’s 1st diamond mine could re-open (January 4, 2012): Nunavut's first diamond mine might soon be back in business for the first time since it closed. The company that now owns the Jericho mine, which is 360 kilometres south of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, is preparing to look for diamonds there again.

Jan. 2 Iqaluit fire sends three to hospital (January 4, 2012): Three Iqaluit residents were sent to hospital Jan. 2, following a fire that broke out in their Iqaluit social housing unit. The fire department was called out at 4 a.m. Jan. 2 to building 2218, where they found a fire burning in the rear of the building. Firefighters quickly extinguished the blaze, containing it to only one unit in the fourplex building.

Climate Change

Indigenous Resilience, Mentors and Champions of Hope for Contemporary Times (january 4, 2012): To the Inuit, the ice is the essence of their culture and character, and they depend on it for their survival. They understand its nature, how it moves, how it retreats and expands, and it is those seasonal changes that define the Inuit spirit. To quote renowned author, Gretel Ehrlich, who lived among them for many years, “They have no illusions of permanence. There is no time for regret. Despair is a sin against imagination.”

Climate changing outlook for harp seals (January 5, 2012): Warming oceans and melting sea ice may have a major impact on harp seals, the doe-eyed animals that are the prime target for Canada's annual seal hunt. Researchers from Duke University in the US found that sea ice in the seals' breeding grounds has shrunk by about 6% per decade over the last 30 years. In some recent years, they say, entire years' broods of cubs may have died.

Thinning sea ice killing seal pups, study says (January 4, 2012): Cover declining by up to 6% per decade, satellite images show Three decades of warming in the North Atlantic has led to thinning ice cover in harp seal breeding grounds and drastically higher death rates among seal pups, according to a new study. "There’s only so much ice out there and declines in the quantity and quality of it across the region, coupled with the earlier arrival of spring ice breakup, is literally leaving these populations on thin ice," said David W. Johnston of the Duke University Marine Lab, who led the study, published Wednesday in the scientific journal PLoS ONE.

Will Melting Arctic Ice Provide a Silver Lining for Shipping's Emissions? (January 4, 2012): A melting Arctic is prompting questions about climate change, geopolitics, and security among other topics, yet one question receiving more attention lately is steeped in nautical mythology: fabled Arctic shipping passages. Typically relegated to the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, with various passages in between (Suez and Panama Canals, Malacca Strait, etc.), the Arctic Ocean may present passages that could drastically reduce shipping distances -- some of which are already being traversed -- and by virtue, reduce time, cost, fuel consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Other

Changes in Arctic Ocean waters detected (January 4, 2012): A hemisphere-wide weather phenomenon is causing record-breaking amounts of freshwater to accumulate in the arctic's Beaufort Sea, U.S. researchers say. A decades-long shift in atmospheric pressure associated with a phenomenon called the Arctic Oscillation is causing frigid freshwater flowing into the Arctic Ocean from three of Russia's great rivers to be diverted hundreds of miles to a completely different part of the ocean, a study published in the journal Nature reported.

Russian tanker to bring emergency fuel to Alaska community (January 4, 2012): An Arctic tanker from the Russian Far East is set to head to one of the most remote communities in the United States.  Once it leaves, it will be joined by an American polar icebreaker -- the cutter Healy, a state-of-the-art ship relatively new to the Coast Guard's fleet. Together, they will spend days powering through up to 300 miles of sea ice, a first for winter shipping in Alaska. Home-ported in Vladivostok, Russia, the Renda has been commissioned to carry 1.3 million gallons of home-heating fuel and gasoline to Nome.