New life comes to the Soviet Arctic LENINGRAD “ of the girls came to the is Station in Leningrad to see qu They brought little bou- ly 0! flowers, gifts and friend- Y smiles I will never forget. tle he of them handed me a lit- ih 00k, a school book in Eng- ney of George Eliot’s Silas Mar- had w On the inside cover she a ritten these words in Rus- ‘To the dear guest from far-’ Mate Canada, from Fedotova one Grigorievna, student of Bate erthen Institute, the Arc- eet €ople’s Department, I wish ay Wholeheartedly good health Successful work in the name the liberation of the Canadian Tetic Peoples.” , cen’ Was a posteard with aa lar message from the Es- 2 patent Inana Ludmilla and chee Senn Lina, the Chuk- hans ee lovelier girls it would be to find anywhere. tive a they return to their na- irel “48e far beyond the Arctic € it will be as teachers. * nig began when my request to les war stitute of Arctic Peo- as arranged. ience 1° an unforgettable exper- and the eg these young people Vk Q ead of the institute, Prof. how 91. utsue, a woman who is a leadin i j ethnology g authority on Arctic reithered around the long tia, table were 10 different na- ify eS — Chukchee, Eskimo, Mansye Avanky, Nanitsky, Hunty, iaky €, Etelman, Komy and Kor- ent ane came here from differ- of the of the Soviet Arctic; all ™M represented a different Sroup, though by now ae speak fluent Russian. and hs efore me were a proud thy _PPY people, cultured, heal- the gotua Citizens with. all in of ME weien, having no fear Tet ure, desiring only to ma their villages and build hey 28S, new people and a Society, “in ping I have seen so far wt clear, vast. country has so “tats ., - illustrated the quali- ‘Under change in people living . areely Socialist society. rents. 4 generation ago the ong of these very people Berigar” Were illiterate, dis- Ren, a dying people — hay ‘Our Arctic peoples vi been for generations past. theiy prey have moved out of Nodey 8loos and yarangs into terpnis Uses on collective en- Use NaN “We build igloos, but student ¢ for refrigerators,” one Mone Us amid laughter). — Dles tne he Soviet Arctic peo- Saga, © are 26 different lan- “f them ,\'. this institute, 11 ey are taught. They show- Stientign es of books, fiction, Choo} 4, Works, — dictionaries, lisheg oe newspapers, all pub- The stuad nee native languages. frog e dents came here to study If ex arge. Even their travel- Of oes are paid. Instead “Ate ty, Q to come here, they | Thee ™Selves paid! Hag live in Modern dormitor- With q°00 of them — complete ation Sets, sports fields, recre- Coulg “Utres, everything they Their average age W ‘ely ‘ SUBgested one of them Sir] wh about their lives, and a © Must have been barely all, stood up. She was By JOHN STEWART Ta *83 Peoples of the Soviet Arctic, like these Udegei girls, are guaranteed full citizenship, education and equal opportunity with all Soviet citizens. Inana Ludmilla, an, Eskimo girl from Chukatka, near the Bering Straits. Without a trace of shy- ness, but with warmth and. confi- dence she told us her own story. ‘we live in four villages,” she said, “on collective farms. The Chukatcha National District was organized in 1930 and this year we are planning to celebrate our 25th anniversary. Our col- lective farm is made up of hun- ters, fishermen and deer breed- ers, We live in pre-fabricated houses and all our villages have schools. : “] was born of a hunter’s fami- ly. I myself know nothing of con- ditions before the revolution. I am too young. But my grand- father, who was a hunter, and my father, now a sailor, have told me of their poverty, of how poorly they lived. They had only the seal and walrus for food. Rus- sian merchants seldom came that far North and the shamans (medi- cine men) deceived them. “My people have told me how hunters would be carried away on the ice and disappear. No- body cared. But just this year when a hunting party got lost, planes went out to search, drop- ped food and a rescue party was seni.” I told them about the living conditions of the Arctic peoples in Canada, about the so-called . deer breeder — a serf: theory held by some “experts” in our government that the Eskimo people could not stand eiviliza- tion’s food and living conditions. They must live on the same fats and blubber their people had al- ways lived on. The incredulous and shocked looks on the faces of the students and professors when they heard of all this was startling. The little Eskimo girls cried out: “It is not true. They are in- sulting ou: people!” She and her people eat ‘“every- thing the Russians eat — we even make our own ice cream.” And a healthier-looking group of young people you wouldn’t find anywhere. From across the room Mikhail Ayneklut, an athletic young man of the Chukchees, spoke up: “My father was a very poor I lived in the tundra, but when the call came to form a collective farm, we joined. It brought together the deer breeders of the tundra, the fur hunters of the beach in friendly association to form the Zhdanov collective farm.” He himself has never seen an igloo. His village has a cinema, cultural clubs, a small theatre and other facilities for easier living. Every village has its own clinic — “and we have no more epidemics.” Then Galina Ottaina stood up— very small she was and spoke with great feeling and an almost defiant pride. “It is not surprising that you have never heard of us. Nifkhy people. We are a very small na- tionality. Before the revolution we were left to die, but since then, we have entered a new era,” The Nifkhy people came from the Amur River region and from the north Sakhalin Islands. For centuries they ate nothing but fish. “Today we are supplied with the same food as all other people.” She told us that there had been discoverd some affinity be- tween her people and North Am- erican Indians, especially in lan- guage. Many words in some Indian languages of North Am- erica resembled Nifkhy words. Most of the students at the Institute go back to their people, she said, “because that is where We are needed most.” But they can choose any occupation they wish. As we spoke to each other, scores of books were being put in front of me. Classies in Rus- sian and ovher literature trans- lated into one of the 11 Aretic languages; beautifully illustrated primary school books in which the particular alphabet is taught in terms of Arctic labor and life, newspapers prin.ed in the Arctic ‘language together with Russian. * By this time the formal inter- view had gotten completely out of hand as the students crowded- around to hear more about Can- ada and «io tell us more of them- selves. Afonasie Kromov, and Avanky, was persuaded to sing a couple of folk songs—an old one and another recently composed. He had just won second prize in a competition of Leningrad sing- ers. I asked if they would all come downstairs so I could take their picture and ihey not only did so, they ali climbed into the bus and came back to the hotel... by which time a whole pocketful of Canadian maple leaf pins and handkerchiefs were gone and we were firm friends. They were so eager to talk wiih us it was hard to break away ... and three of them arrived at the station at midnight to bid us goodbye, ‘take names and ad- dresses so they could write; brought flowers and gifts. 2 T told’ they in parting that it would be our resolves to fight harder ihan ever in Canada for the full equality of our own Arctic and Indian peoples—and we parted to their applause as hundreds of smiling Soviet citi- zens looked on. Canada’s caribou herds are dwindling N the past six years the huge I earibou herds that range the Canadian barrens have been re- duced to half, according t6-7a survey made. this yea. Opening the semi-annual ses- sion of the Nor.hwest Territories Council at Fort Smith this week, R. G. Robertson, fedezal commis- sioner of the Northwest Terri- tories, termed the situation dis- Excep primitive way of life w government's polici closed. by the survey “most dis- tressing.” He. said it called for immediate measure to halt the - decline among caribou, which provide a major source of food and clothing for Indians and Eskimos. Roberison, who is also deputy minister of northern affairs, re- ported that an aerial census this year showed an estimated 300,000 caribou. in the broad expanse of barren lands stretching east from the Mackenzie River to Hudson Bay.