Canada puts own stamp on IPY

This week saw the launch of International Polar Year, with its two-year focus on the study of the Arctic and Antarctic regions.

To raise awareness for activities and international research done during the IPY, Canada, the United States, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark issued a series of IPY stamps, available separately or in a multilingual souvenir book.

Canada Post has two domestic stamps to mark the IPY. One stamp shows a recently discovered brilliant-red deep-sea jellyfish; the other features a male King Eider bird with a bright orange bill, light grey crown and pale, emerald-green cheeks.

The official first-day cover will have the postmark IGLOOLIK NU, as if it had been sent from Igloolik.

Next week in Iqaluit, IPY holds its informal Nunavut launch. On Tuesday morning in the Anglican Parish Hall, Premier Paul Okalik is to kick off a three-day meeting of regional Inuit organizations, government agencies, community groups and researchers on IPY.

“Everyone will have to work together and collaborate in Nunavut on IPY. They have to become familiar with each other’s goals and visions for IPY, to talk about what we want to remain in Nunavut as a legacy for IPY and how the research should be coordinated and licensed,” said Jamal Shirley of the Nunavut Research Institute, Nunavut’s coordinator or “node” for IPY.

Formal launches for IPY took place around the world on Thursday, March 1 – at the North Atlantic House in Copenhagen for Greenland, Denmark, Iceland and the Farøe Islands, on the Svalbard Islands for Norway, and at the Arctic Centre in Rovaniemi, Finland.

IPY New Zealand held its launch event at Scott base, Antarctica.

IPY scientists and officials clinked glasses at the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden.

At the two Canadian IPY launches in Whitehorse and Ottawa, researchers finally learned which projects will receive some of the $150 million earmarked by Canada for IPY. Most of that information that was not available for the Nunatsiaq News press-time this week.