June 27, 2008
Around Nunavut
Tigullaraq quits wildlife board
Joe Tigullaraq has resigned as chair and chief executive officer of the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board.
Tigullaraq, who held the position for three years, said in an announcement that he "enjoyed the opportunities and excitement" that came with the job, but now wishes "to seek new challenges."
Harry Flaherty is now acting chair of the NWMB.
Meadowbank road complete
A 110-km all-weather road has been completed between Baker Lake and the Meadowbank gold mine, which is expected to open by January 2010.
Community celebrations in Baker Lake, which included a performance by Susan Aglukark, the Juno-award-winning, Arviat-born singer, were held June 11.
A bevy of Nunavut MLAs and other dignitaries attended the celebrations, including Paul Okalik, the premier; Patterk Netser, minister of economic development and transportation; David Simailak, MLA for Baker Lake; David Aksawnee, mayor of Baker Lake; and Jose Kusugak, president of the Kivalliq Inuit Association.
Meadowbank, owned by Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd., has probable gold reserves of 3.5 million ounces. The mine is expected to operate for nine years and employ 350 people.
Flower fanatics get new tool
As flowers bloom across the eastern Arctic, tundra strollers may wish to obtain a new tool to identify all manner of Arctic plants.
"Flora of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago," a CD-ROM published by the National Research Council of Canada, is packed with more information than you'll ever need on Arctic flowers.
It includes more than 3,000 colour photos and line drawings, maps that illustrate the distribution of different species, and an interface designed to narrow down and isolate individual species.
It's the product of many years of work by Dr. Susan Aiken, who began visiting the eastern Arctic in 1984, and only recently retired from her post at the Museum of Nature in Ottawa.
Fieldwork for the project led to a few notable finds, including several sitings of a brown orchid, corallorhiza trifida, at two locations inside Auyuittuq park. The orchid is found in Iceland and the western Arctic, but these two instances are the flower's first sightings in the eastern Arctic archipelago.
The CD-ROM may be purchased for $35 online, from the Museum of Nature's online store, or from the NRC Press.
