22nd Arctic Winter Games
Keeping your right hand on the ground, hold your right foot with your left hand then use your left foot to kick a target suspended over- head. Be sure to land firmly on your kicking foot while exhibiting impeccable balance and body control and you’ll have executed an Alaskan high kick worthy of competition! From March 4-10, masters of this and other athletic feats converge on Whitehorse as the city transforms into a hub of circumpolar sport, culture and friendship to host the 22nd Arctic Winter Games. The world’s largest showcase of its kind will welcome fierce competitors from all over Northern Canada, Alaska, Green- land, Russia and Scandinavia. The games
The Race to Adapt
We are finally at a point where few are arguing climate change will not have major consequences for Arctic wildlife. The unknown is how different species will negotiate the rapid changes. Some will find ways to adapt while others may be less fortunate. New information is giving us glimpses of what the future of our Arctic fauna might look like. Polar bears reliant on sea ice to hunt seal are waiting longer to do so as the ice period becomes shorter and shorter. Evidence is mounting that bears are seeking other food sources to sustain themselves. A sharp increase in incidents of cannibalism is adding an additional threat to younger, smaller bears while increased egg scavenging is taking a toll on birds such as the Eider duck. Also
make ample room for conventional sports, but it’s Dene games and Arctic specialties like the sledge jump, knuckle hop and one hand reach that add to the truly one-of-a-kind nature of this competition. Enlisting hundreds of volunteers to pull off this spectacular biennial event, the program includes a youth focused opening ceremony, Northern music showcases, snow sculptures and a pan-Northern exhibit of traditional dolls. For tickets and a schedule of events visit
www.awg2012.org.
Yukoners asked to Tweet up a Storm
dependent on the ice, harp seals use it to birth and raise their young. New studies estimate that in recent poor ice years, seal pup mortality may have been as high as 80 per cent. The seals have been reported breeding further North than they have in the past, an adaptive behaviour that could prove helpful or futile depending on the extent to which the ice will degrade.
The overwhelming use of online social networking and micro-blogging has spread to even the most remote corners of Canada; indeed we can log on in places that you can’t even get a weather report. That’s precisely why Environment Canada’s Meteorological Service has embraced the public’s Twitter tendencies in a Yukon wide pilot trying to determine how the public can help them to track weather patterns in areas that lack a weather station. They are asking the public to Tweet the tag #ytstorm followed by the location and the current weather conditions. Locations can be transmitted automatically by using the Tweet Location tool. They encourage any weather be reported but are particularly interested in unusual events like hail, flooding, and severe snowstorms. And it works both ways. Yukoners can use twitter to check storm reports posted by others. Details on how to get started can be found on the Environment Canada website. The pilot runs through the winter and spring before it is assessed for its value to meteorologists.
March/April 2012
above & beyond
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