January
25, 2002
Greenland hunters want
more money for sealskin
Greenlandic hunters who
make a living from selling sealskins will soon earn even more money for their
pelts.
In December, KNAPK (Greenlands
hunters and fishermens association) and Greenland Skin Buyers agreed on
new, higher prices for sealskin.
As of Jan. 1., a top-quality
dried sealskin will sell for 440 Kroner ($88), a second-grade skin will command
300 Kroner ($60), while a fresh skin will go for 205 Kroner ($41).
Sealskin prices will rise
again when KNAPKs request for a subsidy of up to $12 per skin is approved.
Michael Kollgaard Nielsen,
director of the Great Greenland fur company, said his company needs about 90,000
skins this year. Last year, Great Greenland bought 86,000 sealskins.
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January 25, 2002
Finland hosts conference
on gender equality and women in the Arctic
A conference on women in
the Arctic will take place from Aug. 4 to 6 in Saariselkä, a tundra resort
village in northern Finland.
The Arctic Council, the
Nordic Council of Ministers and Finland, the Arctic Councils host nation,
are organizing the conference, called Taking Wing.
The conference will look
at women and work as well as human rights issues in the Arctic from a womans
point of view.
The gathering is limited
to 200 participants, including representatives of the Arctic Council member
states, permanent participants and observers or of indigenous peoples
organizations, national and regional governments and research institutions.
For more information on
how to participate or submit papers, visit www.arctic-council.org/
or contact conference coordinator Laura Tohka by e-mail: laura.tohka@uta.fi
or, in Nunavut, call Mary Ellen Thomas, manager of the Nunavut Research Institute,
at (867) 979-4681, before Feb. 15.
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January 25, 2002
Housing crisis growing
in Greenland
According to the Greenlandic
radio network KNR, the long waiting list for housing in Greenland is getting
even longer.
There are now 4,250 people
waiting for housing in Greenland municipalities, some of whom will wait for
more than 10 years before finding a place to live.
The number of people waiting
for housing has gone up by 465 since last year. About half of those on the list
were born between 1967 and 1983. When younger Greenlanders start to look for
housing, the INI [the Greenland Housing Company] expects the need for housing
to rise even further.
In Nuuk alone, some 2,000
people are waiting for housing, while Sisimiuts list has more than 500
names.
Even the smaller municipalities
have waiting lists for housing. In Narsaq, there are 122 names on waiting the
list, while in the eastern Greenland community of Tasiilaq, about 100 people
are still waiting for housing.
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January 25, 2002
Barrow welcomes back the
sun
This week, the residents
of Barrow, Alaska, greeted the suns return after after 66 days. To honour
the occasion, tacos at Pepes North of the Border restaurant, normally
$3 to $3.50, sold for $1.02 from noon to 2 p.m.
Children at the Ipalook
Elementary School drew suns and wrote about the sunrise, while the three- to
four-year-olds had a "Welcome Back to the Sun" luau, principal Glenn
Olson told the Anchorage Daily News.
The sun actually rose for
an hour and 15 minutes, setting at 2:17 p.m. On May 10, the sun will rise again
and wont set until Aug. 2.
"By the end of the
month, we hit 14 minutes of daily gain," said Donavon Price, head of the
National Weather Services station at Barrow. "It will be a 10-minute
gain for most of the rest of the time until were nearing the point in
May where its up all the time."
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January 25, 2002
ICC president appoints
goodwill ambassador
Aqqaluk Lynge, president
of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, has appointed a former member of Danish
parliament, Ellen Kristensen of Greenland to serve as a goodwill ambassador
for ICC.
Kristensen will represent
ICCs interests in the Danish government and lobby various political parties
in Danish Parliament.
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