Members of the Ran herders collective after the court decision.
What a great news! Happy about the Samis!
The Swedish Supreme Court has upheld the lower courts, in a landmark decision that recognizes the rights of Sweden’s indigenous population and their reindeer herding.
The following news story was posted on Alaska Dispatch as part of Eye on the Arctic, a collaborative partnership between public and private circumpolar media organizations.
A Siberian hunter silver sunglasses in the palaeontology museum of the Bötönkös village near Batagai in Verkhoyansky region, Yakutia, Siberia, Russia. Cool! An ancient snow-n-sun protection thing! A picture by Ajar Varlamov.
Sami men in Sweden. Photo by Bertil Ericson / SCANPIX
A very active Serge Weber, who is definitely not indifferent to the Sami people’s well-being, provided me with the link to today’s news story Lack of Sami translations in northern Sweden.
Its first abstract tells everything about the issue:
“A Swedish Radio News survey shows that despite the one-year old law making it a requirement for the local governments in northern Sweden to provide information and services to the indigenous, Sami, population, only 2 of 14 bother to do this – sparkling angry reactions from those safeguarding Sami rights and culture.”
Well, I need to say that it’s a pretty common problem in the circumpolar world.
A new video from Galya Morrell and Joel Spiegelman‘s Uummannaq Music project. Created and performed by Kevin Morrell.
The video information:
Uummannaq! is written and performed by Kevin Morrell is based on a true story, except for the parts that aren’t. Kevin, the NYC iliarsuk, lonely and hungry, heads to Uummannaq to meet Pipaluk, the beauty.
Glossary: Iliarsuk=”fatherless, orphan”. Koodlooktoo =”the famous Greenlandic orphan who used to live closer to the Pole than any other human being and who caught the white owl for Adm. Robert Peary”. Pipaluk=”the little small nothing”.
Needless to say, that in the country of understatements, which Greenland definitely is, “the little small nothing” means no less than “the great big something”. We also know that every great hunter and every great leader once used to be an orphan.
Galya Morrell, the co-founder of the Uummannaq Music project, says about the video: (more…)
The Uummannaq Arctic glasses designed by Cool(E)motion to raise funds for Children Center in Greenland
This is really cool what Dutch artists, of the cool(E)motion Arctic Arts project, do for the sake of Children’s Center in Uummannaq, Greenland.
I’m following these cool(E)motion guys’ achievements. I wrote about them previously in the post Iceberg with Dutch Artist Ap Verheggen Artworks Breaks Loose.
It was them, who put a big sculpture on an iceberg and let them roaming from the Greenlandic settlement of Uummannaq across the Arctic waters and it was them, who cried out about the apparent climate change affect, when the iceberg got melted and collapsed just in a few months, faster than expected.
This time they are promoting the Uummannaq Arctic glasses they designed on the basis of traditional Inuit sunglasses. Their cool(E)motion glasses are mordern, high-tech and have all Inuit glasses ability to protect eyes from bright sunshine and snowstorms.
Do you remember Galya Morrell‘s video of the recent New York City blizzards? Sharing the video, she said, “I miss the Uummannaq glasses. They could protect my eyes here!” She didn’t really expect to experience snowstorms in NYC. Who could?! She regreted that she had left them in Greenland.
The Arctic glasses can be very demanded worldwide. Indeed, did you expect heavy snowfalls in Europe and even Las Vegas? No one. These glasses are good to protect your eyes from sudden nature disasters. It’s serious, no jokes.
Bruce Parry (with a tripod) and his team in Yakutsk, Yakutia/Siberia
Hurray! Bruce Parry with his IndusFilm crew is in the Siberian town of Yakutsk! What’s he doing here?
Bruce Parry (born 17 March 1969, in Hythe, Hampshire, England) is a former Royal Marine instructor who is now a TV presenter and adventurer, known particularly for the documentary programme series Tribe (known as Going Tribal in the United States), co-produced by the BBC and the Discovery Channel. Resource: Wiki.
I met Bruce Parry two days ago on Lenin Avenue in Yakutsk. Actually he and his team arrived early, on June 17th. They have already visited a village near the town, went for two celebrations of Ysyakh, Yakut national holiday. One was held in Gorny ulus (three hours by a car from Yakutsk) and Megino-Kangalassky region (just in the front of Yakutsk on the opposite bank of the Lena River). On the day of the meeting, they visited Epl Diamonds’ diamonds-cutting and jewelry’s factories and drove around the downtown shooting general views of the city.
First, I would love to tell the story of how his arrival happened to be possible. (more…)
Resource development has only led to more misery for northern Russia's indigenous peoples, Larissa Abryutina from the Russian Association of the Indigenous People of the North, tells a Laval university conference on the challenges of sustainable development and sovereignty in the Arctic on May 18.
Pollution, alcoholism, poor health care reduce life expectancy to between 40 to 45 years.
QUEBEC CITY — Many of the 280,000 indigenous peoples of Russia’s north are watching their communities and cultures teeter on the brink of extinction as economic hardships force them to leave their homelands and migrate in droves to the city.
Many of those who remain behind have abandoned traditional values and become “profit-driven in their search for compensation for their traditional lands,” Larissa Abryutina of the Russian Association of the Indigenous People of the North said May 18 in a presentation to a conference at Laval University on sustainable development and sovereignty in the Arctic.
Like other speakers, Abryutina revealed a striking irony: that it’s much easier to find bad examples of development and self-determination in the Arctic than good ones.
Abryutina, a Chukchi, is herself a casualty of the desperate choices facing northern Russian indigenous people: a doctor of radiology, she left her home region of Chukotka due to its declining standard of living.
Here I would like to share the current results of the Siberian part of the Snow Change International Research Project realization. It took me real efforts to find this information. The project I am about described has its own website, but its owner doesn’t have time to publish a very interesting research results info on its online resource. Therefore, I asked a regional coordinator, the Northern Forum Academy chairman, Vladimir Vasiliev, to present the text to me. He did, but it was totally written in Russian. So I have translated it into English and not sure yet if some terms sound correctly. If any, just let me know about mistakes.
About: SnowChange is a not-for-profit independent cooperative organisation with headquarters in Finland. Head of International Affairs: Tero Mustonen
Status: Active. Website: SnowChange.org.
Project Mission
The international community network of SnowChange spans all eight Arctic states. Most of the member communities and families are from the various Arctic Indigenous Nations and other subsistence communities.
The project involves working with the various Northern areas and peoples on the topics of ecological, especially climatic and weather changes from the scientific and traditional knowledge point of view. In addition to the community documentation Snowchange as well works to advance local Indigenous knowledge in the global context and advance decolonisation of the North in the face of rapid changes.
The scientific priority of Snowchange is currently in the following areas of the North:
- The Saami territories of Finland, Russia, Sweden and Norway
- Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Murmansk and Republic of Karelia in Russian Federation
- Savo, North Karelia and Kainuu, Finland
- Iceland and Faroe Islands
- British Columbia, Northwest Territories and Nunavut, Canada
- Alaska, USA
In addition to the operations in all Arctic countries (United States / Alaska, Canada, Iceland, Greenland and Faroe Islands (Denmark), Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russian Federation) SnowChange has partners in Bolivia, Nepal, Ghana and New Zealand.
Report on the Snow Change project realization in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)
Information from its regional coordinator, Vladimir Vasiliev
(more…)
The US-based natural gas marketer Coweta-Fayette EMC Natural Gas have recently published cold weather energy efficiency tips for its customers to make their homes well prepared to keep warm, and prevent their bills going up. A nice intention, a good sign of customers care, and well-done PR trick. Whatever it can be, I found their tips pretty useful and appropriate.
However, I and my relativies use some of the listed tips only:
I have a German friend, Bjorn Steinz. He is a pro photographer based in Prague. Two years ago he visited Yakutsk in November. He spent a few days just walking around on streets and taking pictures of people. Since then I promote his works and website oka2 Photography on every occasion, and I am grateful to him for giving such an permission 
Here are what he came out with.
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