The 11th Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) General Assembly is in full swing in Nuuk. Starting on 28 June and lasting the whole week, The General Assembly will culminate on 1 July with the host of the event, ICC Greenland, formally taking over the Chairmanship from ICC Alaska for the next 4-year term. The same day will see the election of a new international chairperson as well as the presentation of a new Executive Council.

Testifying to colonial power structures still in place and ruling the lives of Arctic peoples, the 22 delegates of ICC Chukotka has travelled all the way through Russia and via Copenhagen, Denmark, to meet with their kinsfolk and indigenous associates from Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. Breaking the colonial structures, however, delegates from Canada has arrived in Nuuk on a chartered plane via Iqaluit, Nunavut

The gathering of the world’s Inuit leaders aims at strengthening unity among Inuit. They work to secure and develop Inuit culture and society, but their discussions also comprise inuit participation in political, economic and social developments. ICC - among other things in its capacity as a permanent participant in the Arctic Council - develops and encourages long-term policies for countering impacts of climate change in the Arctic and the rest of the world. Last but not least ICC works for international recognition of human and Indigenous rights of Inuit.

Among the matters to be discussed are following:
· Environment, including Climate Change
· Political and economic development
· Health and Well-being
· Hunting and Food Security
· Governance
· Inuit Arctic Policy

In addition to the political agenda, the General Assembly is garnished with an abundance of cultural and entertaining events, among them a film festival with a packed program of documentaries and features from all over the Inuit world.
Foto by Nuka Moeller

For further information about the 11th ICC GA click here

Close to a hundred years ago, after having viewed the film "In the Land of the Headhunters", director Edward Curtis' cinematic portrayal of "full-blooded" Kwakiutl life on the North West coast of America, one film critic wrote in his column: "The Indian mind is, I believe, constitutionally incapable of acting; it cannot even grasp the meaning of acting as we understand it [..] They are natural in every move [..]"

Since then, the idea of constitutional sincerity of the native mind has stood the test of time. One more proof of the power of this idea over the mind of the general public was screened in the Polar Cinema theatre of the recently completed Oslo Science Conference (OSC), i.e., in the form of the feature film "Inuk" by filmmaker Mike Magidson.

Or rather, in the form of the reactions of the audience to the preview of the film that will officially open at the Inuit Circumpolar Council's upcoming General Assembly in Nuuk. According to the official weblog of the OSC, “powerful and authentic” was the response of a packed cinema.

During the audience questions session following the OSC Polar Cinema preview, director Mike Magidson, screenwriter and anthropologist Jean-Michel Huctin, and lead character Ole Hammeken played along with the commonly held belief in indigenous incapability of pretense, dissimulation, and acting anything other than what we are.

“We wanted to tell the real story”, Jean-Michel Huctin said to the audience. Paradoxically, this ambition of the filmmakers meant turning from documentary to the feature film format or to this particular format in which being what you are and acting it imperceptibly blend into each other. The result is a hybrid that at the same time is deemed authentic and real.

The real story, as it is, centers round a long dog sled trip on which Inuk, a 16 year old boy who is taken away from his alcoholic mother and placed in an orphanage, gets teamed up with seasoned bear hunter Ikuma. Ikuma helps him get to grips with the negligences of a low-life upbringing and get back in contact with his true origin in the indigenous hunting culture.

About the fact that there are no professional actors in the film, Mike Magidson told the audience in Oslo: “They are ordinary people playing roles close to their real lives: teenagers from a home for neglected Inuit children and local seal hunters. This illustrates just how authentic the film is.”

There is also something about the location of the film, Uummannaq and surrounding nature in North-West Greenland, something peculiar, authentic and yet fictitious. The story of Uummannaq and its inhabitants acting themselves goes back at least to 1933 when German director Arnold Fanck shot the search and rescue drama “S.O.S. Eisberg” in this area. Half a century later, in 1986, the Danish film “Tukuma” was also shot on this location.

Since then, a number of films, several of which features Ole Hammeken as a local hunter, have been set in Uummannaq and surroundings. Besides “Inuk”, a drama-documentary entitled “Silent Snow” directed by Jan van den Berg was also pre-released at the OSC Polar Cinema. Hammeken and one or two others play roles “close to their real lives” in both films.

Moreover, impacts of climate change are staged by both productions. In “Inuk” the discourse on climate change is suggested via a flashback scene from Inuk’s early childhood that shows him experience his own father fall through treacherously thin ice and drown. Later in the film, the same thing is about to  happen to Ikuma, however, now Inuk is big and strong enough to pull the unfortunate bear hunter back up on the ice and bring him to the shelter of a hunting cabin.

Yet, one of the really great merits of the film “Inuk” and its makers is that it puts climate change and aboriginal culture into perspective by linking both to the social challenges, the facts of child neglect and substance abuse, that make up the true story of many a modern day Arctic indigenous community.

As, moreover, it is beautifully shot and well edited, and as members of the non-professional cast, despite constitutional incapabilities, manage to pull off some pretty convincing performances and stand out fotogenically from the silver screen – in particular Hammeken and Gaaba Petersen as Inuk – this film appears as one of the grand clous of the OSC, not only with regard to indigenous imprints on the conference, but altogether.

This is all the more remarkable as indigenous people, to the extent that they appeared at all, did so as objects of social scientific scrutiny rather than as participants. Social science itself had barely managed to carve out a niche for itself at the natural science dominated conference. And whereas scientist of whatever sort have funding secured to go to conferences, the organizers had not managed to get space agency funding in place for indigenous participants.

True, a sizeable Saami delegation had pitched laavu tents in front of the conference venue and organized panel debates and food tasting events. Professor Ole Henrik Magga of the Saami University College and Mr. Sergei Kharyuchi of the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON) both adressed the 2500 conference attendants during one of the morning plenaries. And, rounding of indigenous contributions in Oslo, the Association of World Reindeer Herders as well intervened, they too with a film that got presented by the association’s chair, Mr. Mikhail Pogodaev.

The Arctic Council working group on Emergency Prevention, Preparedness, and Response (EPPR) has completed its first meeting of 2010. The meeting took place in the coal mining town of Vorkuta, Komi Republic of the Russian Federation, on 16-18 June. The town is located just above the Arctic circle, 3 hours flight or 48 hours train ride north of Moscow, and home to some 85,000 inhabitants. Formerly, it was infamous for being a main centre of the Soviet Gulag system of forced labor concentration camps.

The hosts of the present EPPR meeting, the Ministry of Emergency Situations (EMERCOM) and the city of Vorkuta, had spared no efforts in welcoming and entertaining the meeting attendants in an overwhelmingly splendid manner. The EPPR delegates were flown in to Vorkuta in a corporate EMERCOM jet and, within Vorkuta, transported by bus and everywhere escorted and saluted by officers of the Emergency Ministry.

The meeting was garnished with social events of stunning theatrical performances and lavish banquets as well as excursions to the city’s mine rescue service, Mining College, and Museum. Agenda items of the meeting included presentations on various issues related to Arctic Emergencies, Search and Rescue, and hazardous substances, as well as workshops on radioactive irradiation and oil spills.

In addition to the national delegations of the Arctic states, WWF Russia was represented at the meeting as were the Inuvialuit Game Council and IPS. RAIPON, however, was not represented at the meeting, nor was any of the other Permanent Participants, despite the fact that EPPR has expressed that it wishes to involve indigenous peoples in on-going and future projects.

Historically most observing activities in the Arctic have been financed and conducted by a national government agency working alone, and by one or small number of scientists working also alone. The implementation of the International Polar Year encouraged a more international approach and many scientists responded by creating informal associations or networks to undertake scientific work that couldn’t be accomplished individually.

Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks (SAON) is a form of ‘broker’ that can draw connections between needs of research, interests in certain research, and those conducting the research. Approved by the Arctic Council and formed in June 2009, the new SAON Steering Group consists of representatives from each of the eight Arctic Council member states, the six Permanent Participants of Arctic Council, the Working Groups of Arctic Council, the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Recently, on May 25 and 26, the SAON Steering Group met to develop a work plan and to set priorities for its activities between now and April 2011, when the Arctic Council Ministers meet in Greenland. The SAON Steering Group has met several times by teleconference and initiated work on several priority activities including: existing observing networks and data access and sharing, community-based monitoring and science-based monitoring, and funding mechanisms.

A subgroup of SAON members, supported by the Arctic Council working group on Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF), are compiling a list of organizations, programs, and networks implementing or making use of traditional and local knowledge.

After four years of consultations, the SAON SG will recommend that it will be disbanded in April 2011; it will further recommend that Arctic Council member states agree on an operational structure with signed agreements by all member countries.

Around 2500 scientists, educators, students, etc., from more than 50 countries have registered for the largest Polar science gathering ever, the International Polar Year/Oslo Science Conference from 8 till 12 June.

The conference will take place in the Norway Exhibition & Convention Centre in Lillestrøm, 10 minutes train ride from downtown Oslo. The centre with its tens of thousands square metres of exhibition space will have no problem holding the participants and the some 2500 oral and poster presentation falling within 6 main themes and some 39 sessions.

The OSC is in every respect an event of gigantic proportions. In addition and parallel to the scientific program, a whole range of festivals, expositions, and other outreach activities will unfold during the OSC. For example, a Polar Festival, that among other things feature Saami food and hide production, will be arranged on the Oslo city hall square, and a Polar film festival will screen more than a 100 films in Lillestrøm and in the Oslo cinemateque.

In the most recent OSC newsletter, the organizers predict that shrinking Polar sea ice extent will be one of the hottest topics of the conference. In May this year, satellite data showed the Polar sea ice shrink to a level below the former record low of 2007.

Even though cold weather in March caused a late-season ice growth and postponed the melt season, once spring set in the new and thin ice cover melted very quickly. According to leading Polar science expert Dr. David Barber, the loss of all thick, multiyear ice in the Arctic could be imminent.