Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jan 11/99) - Thanks to a multi-party Canadian aid effort, several indigenous communities in Arctic Russia are experiencing relief in what's quickly become a winter of shortages.

A Canadian Inuit-owned First Air jet loaded with $500,000 worth of humanitarian-aid supplies and a team of Canadian officials arrived in the Russian Far East this week to help feed hundreds of Inuit, Chukchi and Yupik people in the isolated Chukotka region of north-west Russia.

Speaking from her Ottawa office Friday, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, said Phase 1 of the Inuit Express project was moving along ahead of schedule. She said Terry Fenge, ICC director of research, telephoned from Serenniki on Thursday and reported no problems and that 200 of the 540 boxes of aid supplies -- including flour, sugar, cooking oil, pasta and medical kits -- had already been distributed to needy families. The team moves on to the communities of Yakrakynkot and Enurmino over the weekend.

On a stopover in Yellowknife on Tuesday, Fenge said he expected to find "significant privation" in Chukotka, and Watt-Cloutier said he later reported conditions were as bad as expected.

"He said he felt Serenniki was on the edge," she said, "They've just run out of everything and some of them were trying to hunt in traditional umiaqs (skin-covered boats) held together with string and rope."

Russia is facing a difficult winter following the currency crash last August, and some of the isolated indigenous communities have been particularly hit hard as fuel supplies run low and temperatures drop to -50C.

Watt-Cloutier said the idea for ICC participation in a relief effort came when RAIPON, the Russian Association of Indigenous People, sent a letter to Ottawa in October appealing for help. ICC lobbied for federal government involvement, and the resulting Inuit Express project includes the participation of the Canadian International Development Agency, the Canadian Red Cross Society and the federal departments of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

But Watt-Cloutier stressed that Inuit Express is not simply a program for handing out supplies.

"We have to start thinking long-term and open talks about what to do with Russia's indigenous people," she said, "When we talk about building capacity for growth, it's not just humanitarian aid."

The ICC president said Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy's $10-million pledge for Arctic relief was well received, and that the ICC would begin planning Phase 2 of the project when the team returns to Canada.

Though the party is scheduled to return to Canada on Jan. 14, Watt-Cloutier was pleased to say that the deliveries were moving along ahead of schedule, and that the expected delays from Russian bureaucracy had not yet been encountered.

Watt-Cloutier also said Fenge had reported a positive reaction among the aid recipients.

"He said people who met the team were weeping in gratitude," she said.