The Arctic This Week Take Five: Week of April 30, 2018

Russia launches floating nuclear power plant

Russia just launched the Akademik Lomonosov: a floating 70-megawatt nuclear power plant. The power plant is supposed to be used to power remote seaside settlements and was designed to produce enough power for a town of 100,000 people (The Telegraph). The ship will be towed from St. Petersburg to Murmansk where it will be loaded with fuel and then depart for the Arctic port of Pevek in summer 2019 (The Independent).

Take 1: The controversial power plant has been condemned by environmental groups like Greenpeace and described as a “nuclear Titanic” and a “floating Chernobyl” soon to be floating around the fragile Arctic Ocean (The Telegraph). Greenpeace opposes the floating nuclear plants for their devastating effects on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in the event of a spill and for their intended use by number of other nations for offshore power oil and gas exploration (Greenpeace).

Native Alaskan language loss an emergency

The Alaska Senate recently joined the House of Representatives to ask Gov. Walker to recognize the decline of Alaskan Native languages as a linguistic emergency. Aresolution, passed by the House in March, urges Gov. Walker to work with lawmakers and organizations to make continued use of the languages a priority (Alaska Public Radio). The House will have to evaluate any changes made to the resolution by the Senate before the resolution is adopted.

Take 2: This resolution comes a decade after Alaska lost its remaining speaker of Eyak, a Na-Dené language spoken by the Eyak people (Juneau Empire). Unfortunately, the loss of Eyak is not a unique event and thousands of languages around the world are in danger of a similar fate (Linguistic Society). In Alaska, most of its 20 indigenous languages are predicted to be extinct by 2100 if no action is taken (State of Alaska).

Franklin Expedition artifacts have new permanent home

After two years of negotiations, the artifacts of the once lost Franklin expedition now have an official owner: Canada and the Inuit Heritage Trust. The ill fated Franklin expedition set sail from England to Northern Canada in 1845 and its crew disappeared the next year after its ships became trapped in ice (Maritime Executive). The area encompassing the ships off the coast of Nunavut was declared a National Historic Site shortly after their discovery in 2014 to facilitate underwater archaeology while the artifacts were uncovered (CBC).

Take 3: Although the British Government was the rightful owner of the ships and artifacts, in 1997 representatives agreed that ownership would be transferred to Canada. A formal agreement was not created at the time and formal negotiations over the artifacts did not begin until in 2016. Timing couldn’t be better for Canadians to learn about the expedition as the Canadian Museum of History recently launched an exhibition on Franklin’s ships and a new television show produced by AMC based on a fictional version of events is currently airing (Canadian Geographic). The timing is also good for the UK, who is looking to strengthen ties with commonwealth nations as it distances itself from the EU.

Canada is getting an Arctic university

Canada will soon become the last Arctic nation to have a university in the Arctic, for the Arctic. The country currently possesses three Arctic colleges in each of the country’s territories, with Yellowknife’s Yukon College transforming into a Yukon University by spring of 2020. The university will offer specialized courses such as Bachelor of Arts in Indigenous Governance and other degrees relevant to its location (Yukon University).

Take 4: Yukon University is marketing itself as a ‘hybrid university’ where a wide variety of accreditations will be offered, with the highest education level for the near future being a bachelor’s degree. The university should offer good opportunities to locals who seek higher learning close to home and students wishing to learn about Indigenous people in Canada’s north (HNN).

The Arctic is now a bear eat bird kind of place

A recent study by Dey et al. has found evidence that the largest colony of eiders, a species of Arctic duck, should be benefitting big time from climate change. As spring melt comes earlier every year, eiders are given earlier access to underwater food stocks and more time to fatten up before the breeding season. The problem is that earlier melt also results in hungrier bears, who have a shorter period to fatten up for the summer months when they rarely eat. The result is polar bears turning to the easy meal of eider eggs. Unfortunately, this is unsustainable for both species because polar bears cannot subsist on eider eggs and these eider populations now have an effective reproductive output near zero (Desmog Canada).

Take 5: This study was spurred on by locals in eastern Nunavut who informed researchers that they were noticing more and more polar bears interacting with bird colonies in the region. When the study was finished, the authors wrote an op-ed encouraging the Canadian federal government to include Indigenous partnerships and provide more support for Arctic research (Policy Options). Researchers around the globe have also recently been turning to traditional ecological knowledge to gain a ‘holistic’ understanding of our ecosystems and their perturbations (Yale Environment 360).