New board for Canadian Polar Commission

This week, Andy Scott, federal minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, announced new appointments to the Canadian Polar Commission board of directors for 2005 – 2008.

“I am pleased that all these extraordinary people have agreed to serve on the Canadian Polar Commission,” Scott said.

Four of the appointments are individuals with connection to Nunavik or Nunavut:

* New vice-chairperson François Trudel, a professor of anthropology at the University of Laval, has been involved in research projects with Nunavut Arctic College and Iqaluit Elders’ Society since 2000;
* New director Gordon Miles lives in Iqaluit, where he is the manager of business services for the Kakivak Association;
* • New director Susan Rowley is an assistant professor and curator of public archaeology for the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, and has more than 30 years of experience in archaeology and anthropology across the Arctic. Some of Ms. Rowley’s most recent fieldwork includes a collaborative project with the Inuit Heritage Trust and the community of Repulse Bay;
* New director Jocelyn Barrett of Kuujjuaq has been a legal advisor to the Makivik Corporation in Kuujjuaq since 1998. Barrett has also been a member of Quebec Bar Association Committee on Law and Aboriginal Peoples for nearly five years.

Tom Hutchinson is the Canadian Polar Commission’s new chair. The commission is Canada’s lead agency in the area of polar science.