Arctic Connections: Beware of Polar Bears When Tagging Narwhals. This month, Clint Wright, Vancouver Aquarium's senior vice president and general manager, is venturing into Canada's Arctic to conduct research on narwhals which make up a vital part of the Arctic ecosystem. Keeping track of their population size and understanding migration patterns are important in making sure their populations stay healthy. He will be providing regular updates on his research - this is his fourth blog post. The Vancouver Sun

Arctic Melt, Smash and Grab Ahead. Shell's push to open up the Arctic Ocean is not going well. Having already scaled back its plans, it may be prevented from exploratory drilling in the Beaufort Sea this year. The reason? Whaling takes priority. With the Arctic sea ice at its lowest for at least 3 million years the rush to exploit hitherto inaccessible resources - principally oil, fish and minerals - is well and truly on. The massive melt constitutes an environmental disaster for many of the world's inhabitants, to say nothing of its flora and fauna, but for some people, it is simply a commercial opportunity. The New Scientist

Learning About Sami and Their Culture. Sami are the original indigenous people of the Arctic regions of Northern Scandinavia and Russia. For five centuries these nomadic reindeer herders' lifestyle was dictated by the long cold winters and short cool summers of the tundra and taiga. As the Sami followed traditional migration routes to communal pasturelands they took from nature only enough for survival and made minimal impact on the environment. These established territories became fragmented, however, when Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia began invading the north polar regions to colonize and begin industrial exploitation of their timber and minerals. With the incursion the Sami found themselves systematically persecuted for having their own languages, cultural beliefs, animistic religion, and labor as itinerant herdsmen. Bluffon Today