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Because of the melting Arctic ice, it looks like polar bears are turning to an unusual source of food: other polar bears.
Some scientists and tour operators have reported seeing between four to eight cases of polar bear cannibalization, where mature male polar bears have eaten either cubs or other adults bears around Churchill, Manitoba. more »
Earlier this month, the Alaskan government invited companies to place bids in order to win the rights to explore for oil and gas in the Beaufort Sea – including a section that is being claimed by both the United States and Canada. In response to the move, Canada has laid a complaint with Washington. more »
During a speech to the Economic Club of Canada that took place yesterday in Toronto, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said that Canada is at the ready to defend its Arctic borders, protecting itself against other nations that might “push the envelope” when it comes to their own Arctic rights. Lawrence made it very clear that even though scientists are not finished mapping Canada’s northern boundaries, the country is taking its responsibility for its Arctic region serious. more »
Scientists from SINTEF, a nonprofit Norwegian research institute, ran experiments in the Barents Sea last May in regard to oils spills and cleaning them up. Anchorage Daily News is reporting that Shell Oil CO. has brought those scientists to Anchorage to share their findings. more »
HALIFAX, Canada — US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Friday said Washington aims to boost cooperation with Canada in the Arctic, as Russia and others eye its vast untapped resources. more »
OTTAWA (Dow Jones)–Canada will host the meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of Seven most developed nations February in a city in the remote Arctic tundra, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Wednesday. more »
In preparation of ice free Arctic summers, the US Navy has issues a 33-page Arctic roadmap developed by its Task Force Climate Change. The document covers all naval operations.
Lieutenant Vasquez, US navy spokesperson, says that the navy is examining its ability to respond to disaster, along with its Arctic security, among other things. more »
MONCTON, N.B. — The former commanding officer of HMCS Toronto said Monday that Arctic sovereignty is a matter of use it or lose it — and Canada has been busy using it. more »
Rankin Inlet is a novel set in an isolated community on the west coast of the Hudson Bay, roughly halfway between the Manitoba border and the Arctic Circle. The main characters are a British nurse-midwife who has been posted to the Rankin Inlet Nursing Station and a traditional Inuit hunter and his family, who struggle to adjust to the challenges of modern settlement living. The novel opens in 1970 and ends in 1999, but through a series of stories and flashbacks, it touches on many of the tumultuous changes the Inuit of northern Canada adapted to throughout the twentieth century. Through the nurse’s diary entries, we see through fresh eyes a remarkable place and its inhabitants. As the old man sits at the bedside of his critically ill daughter, he tells her stories about their past, and how they came to live in Rankin Inlet. Through a young man’s letters to his kid brother, who is away at hostel school, we learn about the joys and challenges of contemporary living in a remote Arctic community. As the lives of these characters become intertwined, they confront issues of love and loss, identity and belonging. All the while, political forces are reshaping the map of Canada.
‘Rankin Inlet’ is a hell of a good book — one of the few books about the high arctic I have read in many a year that strikes at the core of reality and truth together. It is a highly emotional experience to read it. –Farley Mowat