Polar Outreach Catalogue

The Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely was an exhibition developed by the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC (http://forces.si.edu/arctic/). The exhibition puts a human face on warming in the Arctic by exploring how changes have been observed and documented by scientists and polar residents alike. It was on display at the Museum during 2006 as a part of its IPY-related public efforts, and then portions of the full exhibition were adapted by the Canadian IPY Secretariat as a smaller set of 19 portable panels that could travel to communities across the Canadian Arctic. Between 2007 and 2010 this traveling exhibition - reformatted into English, French, and Inuktitut from its original English-only version and packaged in four enormous hockey bags - traveled by truck and small plane to schools, community centers, museums and other public spaces across Yukon, Nunavut, Nunavik, and the Northwest Territories.