Children of the Arctic Festival. Photo By Galya Morrell.

Children of the Arctic Festival. Photo By Galya Morrell.

It is already a big event and a big tradition. This year The Children of the Arctic International Festival is arranged by Shparo‘s Adventure Club under the support of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation for the third time. It started at the Youth Almaz Center in the town of Ruza on Aug. 20th and ended in Korelia on Sep. 02.

More than 100 children from the Arctic regions participated in the festival. They were from 11 Russian ones (Arkhangelskaia Oblast, Vologodaskaia Oblast, Moscow, Murmanskaia Oblast, Nenetzky Autonomous District, Karelia Republic, Komi Republic, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetzky Municipal District, Chukotsky autonomous district, Yamalo-Nenetzky autonomous district as well as from Greenland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden.

The mission remains the same and, probably, won’t be changed ever, as it is the key stone of the mordern Arctic youth. It’s to unite children of the Arctic region to settle the common problems under the slogan “Our Arctic – Our Future.”

The Festival is carried out by the Organizing Committee, including prominent official authorities of Russia such as Dr. Arthur Chilingarov, Special Representative for Arctic and Antarctic Issues to the President Russian Federation, Vasily Zhukov, academician, Rector of the Russian State Social University, Dr. Dmitry Shparo, General Director of the Adventure Club.

And you know what? There was our friend Galya Morrell, co-leader of Uummannaq Music Project.

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A Russian boat RUS in Clyde River, Nunavut. Photo by CBC.ca

A Russian boat RUS in Clyde River, Nunavut. Photo by CBC.ca

Adventure enthusiasts from the Russian city of Ivanovo were reported to be the first sailers, who have crossed the Polar Circle on an air-inflated trimaran. It happened on Aug. 5th, 2011. Last Satuday, their boat called “Rus” have already made it to the Clyde River in Nunavut, Canada.

When Canadians saw their strange-looking 7.6-metre trimaran, they called it as a homemade boat “made out of bamboo, rope and duct tape.”

Here is what CBC.ca wrote:

“Absolutely fascinating. I’ve never seen the likes of it in my life,” said Constable Rolland Lavoie, who’s with the RCMP in Clyde River. “I would expect that a trip of this sort to be on a huge cruise boat, something huge, but this is something out of Gilligan’s Island, for crying out loud. Very Interesting.”

Ok. Who are these Russian sailers?

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The 2011 Uummannaq Polar Institute Summer Expedition. To the North of Greenland.

The 2011 Uummannaq Polar Institute Summer Expedition. To the North of Greenland.

Aaaaa, it’s my big honour to be one of Ole Jorgen Hammeken‘s many friends. He is the most recognizable Greenlandic man, who attracts the world’s attention to Greenland, its people and climate issues.

It were him and his wonderful wife, who run together Uummannaq Children’s Home in the settlement called Uummannaq.

It was them, who host Galya Morrell and Joel Spiegelman‘s Uummannaq Music project.

Certainly, they are those people, who share Uummannaq Polar Institute‘s vision, i.e. to conserve Greenland’s local culture and promote educational programs for young Inuit people.

UPI was founded in 2007 by Ann Andreasen and was inaugurated in 2008 by HSH the Prince Albert II of Monaco, Jean Malaurie, a distinguished French ethnographer, and by Arthur Chilingarov, polar explorer and Vice-President of the Russian Parliament.

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Can you imagine? When the rest of the world is suffering the heat and the temperature much above +40C and even +50C, people of Greenland’s Uummannaq settlement are enjoying “the sight and light and smell of the salty seawater and fresh glacier air” daily.

That’s the way Hivshu Ua described the Uummannaq life among Arctic icebergs in July 2011.

Uummannaq dwellers are very lucky to have such honor… Unfortunately, it might not last forever. In 30 years, scientists predict the ice-free(!) Arctic… :(

Who is Hivshu Ua?

He is one of great men participated in the Uummannaq Music project. Be sure to visit UM’s website, facebook page and Flickr sets to learn more and see Greenland in its currently-existing glory.

Hope, you will like this and below-published photographs and say thanks with me to Hivshu Ua, their author, for letting us to see such an Arctic summer beauty online.

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BattleHarbour about its video:

What an amazing sight to see! “Small” chunk of the massive Petermann Ice Island. This “berg” is approximately 3 miles long and 2.8 miles wide. Wow, that’s nearly 5 times the size of Battle Island!

Special thanks go out to Port Hope Simpson resident & crab fisherman, Eldred Burden, for capturing this magnificent ice structure. Truly breathtaking!

This part of the Berg has already passed Battle Harbour, but we are still awaiting the arrival of the larger chunk!

A massive ice island that broke off a glacier in Greenland 11 months ago has been winding its way through Arctic waters ever since. Satellites have now spotted it off the coast of Labrador, Canada, MSNBC.com reports,

The ice island was formed when a 97-square-mile chunk of ice broke off Greenland’s Petermann Glacier on Aug. 5, 2010. It was the largest iceberg to form in the Arctic in 50 years.

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Text, photo, video (c) Galya Morrell

The second season of the Uummannaq Music project (www.uummannaqmusic.com) curated and done by Galya Morrel and Joel Spiegelman in Uummannaq, Greenland, has been finished.

It’s really hard to describe what they have completed this year. So many activities! Too many! That was the reason why the post was delayed.

Praise god, Galya created the video presentation of the Uummannaq Music project for The International Arctic Social Sciences Association (IASSA) Conference in Akureyri, Iceland :)

Galya Morell & Joel Spiegelman’s project “Uummaannaq Music”
The most unusual Music Festival at the Ice School for Orphaned Eskimo Children in Uummaannaq, Greenland, 590 kilometers north of the Artic Circle
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Uummannaq Music is included in Cold United’s list of Cold-Related People & Projects.

What a great video! This is the preview of the BBC documentary “Arctic with Bruce Parry.” It’s coming up soon on BBC 1. Don’t miss this unique chance and spectacular insight into the life of Uummannaq, Greenland. Check the schedule on BBC.

Follow also the amazing project Uummannaq Music run by Galya Morrell and Joel Spiegelman in Uummannaq. All project’s news updates might be found on its Facebook page as well.

This post is dedicated to my friends in Uummannaq. Greetings from the Siberian city of Yakutsk! :)

It was said to hear from Ole Jorgen about the absence of sea ice and snow in your area this winter. Hope it would be possible to backward nature processes :(

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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

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.

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About the documentary: Silent Snow depicts an Inuit search for solutions to the chemical poisoning of the world. Trailer for a feature length film. Expected release: Spring 2011. Film by Jan van den Berg and Pipaluk Knudsen-Ostermann.

“There’s new evidence that even in the glaciers pesticides have been stored. If we stop the production now, there is still a lot more waiting for us. Global warming makes this process even faster… I am telling a sad story…” the narrator.

Moki Kokoris’ review, (more…)

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