The Polar Night has set in here in Tromsø. The sun is now below the horizon until the end of January, but the little 'light' we do get casts a magical pink hue over the city and the sky is an mysterious dark blue. It really does put a person in the 'Holiday Spirit'…. and what better thing to feature for the December newsletter when we are thinking about the holidays than Reindeer :)
Norway has a long tradition of reindeer husbandry and since 2005 has hosted the International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry (ICR) which was established by the Norwegian Government in 2005 in Kautokeino, as a contribution to the unique international cooperation of circumpolar reindeer herding peoples.
"ICR is to be a knowledge base for providing and exchanging information and documentation between different reindeer peoples, national authorities and research- and academic communities at the national and international levels. The Centre will thus contribute to adding value, to improving information and to enhancing understanding for world reindeer husbandry and reindeer peoples, their traditional knowledge and their future development."
The above except was taken from the ICR's great website hosted by the Arctic Portal, who also hosts our website. There is a really great photo gallery showing reindeer herding in several countries, a great video gallery of presentations and interviews dealing, as well as a great Reindeer blog that has loads of news stories from around the world related to reindeer. I highly encourage you all to check it out: http://icr.arcticportal.org.
On the 16th of November the 16th Nordic Conference on Reindeer and Reindeer Husbandry Research was held here at the University of Tromsø. Unfortunately I didn't attend, but hear it was a great success. For more information on this conference, visit: http://www.rangifer.no/konferanse/programen.html.
If you are interested in learning more about Reindeer, you might be interested in the Master’s level course on Adaptation to Globalization in the Arctic: The Case of Reindeer Husbandry which is being offered this spring. The deadline to register is 10 December, so make sure you check it out soon: http://tinyurl.com/reindeer-course.
