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April 2, 2004
More Alaskans commit suicide in the spring
SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE
Between 1990 and 2002, there were 1,618 suicides in Alaska, and that over this
13-year period, 153 people of them took their own lives in May, more than in
any other month.
April followed, with 150 suicides.
The fewest suicides occurred in December and October, with 117 in each of those
months. November was ninth, with 131.
Susan Soule, program coordinator with the Alaska Division of Behavioral Health,
said the public often links the winter months and winter holidays with higher
suicide numbers.
"It may be that bad things around the holidays are more newsworthy because
they conflict with the sort of forced commercial gaiety of the season,"
Soule told the Anchorage Daily News. "There is some increased stress
around the holidays... maybe there's an oversimplification of the link between
stress and suicide."
April 2, 2004
Norway to count its bears
Norway's polar bear population will be the subject of a census this year. Researchers
from the Norwegian Polar Institute told Norwegian Broadcasting Company that
the size of Norway's polar bear population has largely been based on sheer guesswork.
"This is the first time that the authorities will go in and create a credible
overview of the polar bear population in the Arctic," said Jon Aars of
the Polar Institute .
Previous estimates have put the polar bear population between 2,000 and 5,000
animals in the Norwegian and Russian areas of the Arctic.
Polar bears have been protected by law in Norway since 1973, following years
of hunting that reduced the population by half.
Aars said he and fellow researchers also hope to learn how polar bears and
their main prey, ringed seals, are affected by changes in the global climate.
April 2, 2004
Trekkers to test Bering Strait
A Belgian and an Alaskan are scouting ice conditions on the treacherous Bering
Strait for an expedition across it next year.
Dixie Dansercoer, 42, and Troy Henkels, 37, were were in the village of Wales,
the last community before North America drops into water.
The two men, who are experienced adventurers in extreme cold, told the Anchorage
Daily News they hadn't expected the strong winds and expanses of frigid water,
which have forced them to scrap their plan of using kites to propel them on
skis across the ice of the strait.
The team joins others, usually foreigners, who are fixated on getting across
the 75 km-stretch of ice and water between Alaska and the Russian Far East,
Since the mid-1980s, many, including elite athletes and the mentally ill, have
tried to cross the strait by swimming, dog mushing and bicycling.
In 2002, British multimillionaire Steve Brooks and a partner made it through
the ice to the international dateline, in an amphibious vehicle, before Russian
border guards cut the journey short.
Most expeditions fail because of the ice, wind and water currents. Polar bears,
hypothermia and frostbite are other hazards.
One man claims he made the trek. Russian explorer Dmitry Shparo and his son
Matvey entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 1998 after they crossed
from Siberia to Alaska, mostly drifting hundreds of kilometers north on sheets
of ice.
April
2, 2004
Greenland mayors against home rule government cabinet
SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE
The mayors of Greenland's smaller communities are against the Greenland Home
rule government's plan to scrap the one-price system for goods and services.
Last week, 14 mayors who participated in a community conference in Kangerlussuaq
signed and handed over a letter of protest to the Home rule cabinet.
"When you remove the one-price system, you go back to G-60 policy (that
is, Danish policy in Greenland during 1960s), that closed down the smaller towns
and communities," wrote the mayors.
The mayors say they're afraid people will move to larger towns to survive and
over the long term their communities will empty.
April 2, 2004
Artist paints iceberg... red
SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE
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Last week in Disko Bay, Greenland, Danish artist Marco Evaristti accomplished
what he called his biggest challenge to date — painting an iceberg red.
"It is so poetic — it looks like a red pea," Evaristti said
shortly after finishing the job of painting the iceberg.
He used four 1,000-litre stubs to mix the paint needed to cover the iceberg.
He then used 200 metres of fire-hose and a pump to spray the iceberg from a
boat.
In his past work, Evaristti has been preoccupied with red and blood, a substance
that he says signals both life and death.
According to the art critics, Evaristti wants to show evil that results in
death.
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