During the 5th Arctic Leaders Summit that recently took place in Moscow, a meeting was set up between representatives of the Arctic Athabaskan Council and speakers of the Siberian Ket language. The meeting was premised on recent linguistic findings indicating a likely relationship between Ket and Athabaskan languages and, thus, aimed at possibly reuniting related indigenous peoples of North America and Siberia after a separation lasting some four thousand years.

In a press release of 20 April 2010, AAC Executive Director and initiator of the meeting Ms. Cindy Dickson is quoted for saying: “The Kets told us this was the first time they had met representatives of North American Athabaskan peoples. They are very excited about the possibilities of working with us and want to organize cultural exchanges. They also want to promote research on the linguistic and other connections between us.”

Until recently, Ket has been thought by linguists to be an isolate, the sole surviving language of a Yeniseian language family, spoken along the middle Yenisei basin. However, new research, carried out preeminently by Western Washington University historical linguist Edward Vajda, indicates that Ket may likely be related to Athabaskan languages.

The Athabaskan languages together with Tlingit and Eyak make up the Na-Dene language family that comprises more than 40 indigenous languages spoken in a wide geographical areas stretching from Yukon and Nunavut to the Southwest of USA. In 2008, the last speaker of Eyak died, however, that same year, Edward Vajda presented his thesis about the relatedness of Na-Dene and Ket and their forming a Dene-Yenitseian language family.

The Ket people, according to the most recent census, number 1887 individuals, most of which live in an area around the eastern middle part of the Yenisey River in Sibiria. Traditionally, the Ket engaged in hunting, fishing, and reindeer breeding.

Today, only about 200 Kets still speak their mother tongue. According to Olga Peshkina of the Ket delegation to the Moscow meeting, the Kets are losing their language. Herself a linguistic scholar, Ms. Peshkina has since the 1980’s been involved in language revival activities such as publication of books in Ket and teaching children to speak it.

In the AAC press release, Deputy Chief Danny Cresswell, of the Carcross and Tagish First Nation states that “[..] the connection between the Ket and Athabaskan peoples is hugely important. Upon this base we can build cultural, economic and perhaps political links.”

The Fifth Arctic Leaders Summit organized by the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON) in Moscow was brought to a successful conclusion with the attending Arctic Indigenous leaders' signing of the ALS V declaration.

Indigenous leaders representing the Arctic Athabaskan Council (AAC), the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), RAIPON, and the Saami Council signed a declaration on what had been the overarching theme of the ALS V, "Industrial development of the Arctic under climate change - new challenges for indigenous peoples."

The final of the two day summit had centered on climate change and its impacts on and challenges for Artic communities. Among others, Lars Moller, the Danish Arctic Council Chair, Vladimir Kattsov, director of a federal Russian geophysical and meteorological agency, and Mikhail Pogodaev of the Association of World Reindeer Herders gave presentations on this theme as seen from the perspective of their respective organizations.

All of the attending Permanent Participants in the Arctic Council, likewise, took the opportunity to make presentations on themes relating to climate change challenges. Among them, Cindy Dickson of the AAC, to an accompaniment of a splendid photo slide show, spoke about resilience aspects of indigenous peoples' living on the land and their right to continue to do so, to seek well-being and livelihood from doing so, as they had since time immemorial.

Civil society organizations like the WWF were also attending the summit. WWF Russia representative Victoria Elias took the floor to present a recently launched project on Rapid Assessment of Circum-Arctic Ecosystem Resilience (RACER) that aims at identifying and assessing eco-regional units and aspects of resilience as well as vulnerability with particular regard to Arctic communities.

James Stotts, International Chair of ICC, in response to the WWF presentation, asked Ms. Elias if she could provide a lead as to an official stance of her organization regarding the rights of indigenous peoples to harvest resources to sustain their livelihoods.

Ms. Elias, in response, admitted that the WWF is indeed a big organization giving many, and not necessarily aligned, messages to the world. However, she would maintain that the WWF do have an official policy with respect to indigenous peoples rights to sustainable use of nature, and that, basically, WWF considers itself to be on the same side as indigenous peoples.

The ALS V is scheduled back-to-back with the 20th anniversary of RAIPON as well as the opening of the EXPO 2010 headlined "Treasure of the North" in the All-Russia Exhibition Centre. A report on the RAIPON anniversary as well as a link to the ALS V declaration to be published on this site shortly.

The 5th Arctic Leaders Summit organized by RAIPON (Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North) got off to a flying start Wednesday, 14 April. The summit takes place in the conference hall of Hotel Cosmos, Moscow. Some 100 participants were greeted with a traditional welcome ceremony performed by Russian Indigenous artists. Guests were made to ceremoniously pass under a gate of wooden sticks, and each had to tie a colored ribbon round a string crossing the conference hall before being treated with canapés of traditional food.

Indigenous representatives from all over the circumpolar region together with politicians, diplomats, and officials of the Arctic states, the UN and EU, as well as industrial executives attended this first day of the ALS V. All groups gave statements and made presentations during the day.

The ALS V is chaired by RAIPON President Sergey Haruchi. Guests of Honor include the International Chair of ICC (Inuit Circumpolar Council) James Stotts, representatives of four of the Permanent Participants as well as Danish Chair of the Arctic Council Lars Moller, officials of UNDP and the European Commission, Indigenous representatives of the Barents cooperation, and several Russian governmental and parliamentary representatives.

The overall theme of the ALS V: "Industrial development of the Arctic under climate change - new challenges for indigenous peoples." The first day centered on industrial development and environmental questions mainly from indigenous and industrialist perspectives.

Among other things, Deputy Chief Danny Cresswell of the AAC (Arctic Athabaskan Council), seconded by Swedish Saami Parliament official Stefan Mikaelsson, directly addressed Arctic Council Chair Lars Moller about support to have a  draft Nordic Saami Declaration referenced in future Arctic Council declarations. This declaration calls for a homogenizing of legislative and institutional frameworks concerning Saami people in Norway, Sweden, and Finland.

RAIPON rounded of the this first day of the ALS V by hosting a grand reception in the neighboring All-Russia Exhibition Centre (formerly VDNKh). The reception featured splendid performances by indigenous ensembles of dancers, singers, and musicians from all over indigenous Russia.

More updates on the last day of the ALS V as well as the celebration of RAIPON's 20th anniversary to be posted shortly.