PRESS RELEASE
North3 Goes Live on the Internet

From:
Canadian Embassy Heads of Mission:
Ralph Lysyshyn (MOSCOW)
Anna Blauveldt (REYKJAVIK)
Scott Fraser (HELSINKI)
Fredericka Gregory (COPENHAGEN)
Jillian Stirk (OSLO) and
Alexandra Volkoff (STOCKHOLM)

Date: 2008-01-10
Summary: To mark the International Polar Year, Canada's circumpolar embassies have launched an internet outreach project to engage northern youth.

Canadian embassies in COPENHAGEN, HELSINKI, MOSCOW, OSLO, REYKJAVIK and STOCKHOLM are pleased to announce that North3 is now on the internet (www.ookpik.org/north3). These missions have collaborated to produce a website, in eight languages, where young northern residents can record their opinions and ideas about the circumpolar world. On the occasion of the International Polar Year, this website will support an outreach program by the missions, including speaking events and school visits, designed to engage youth in the Government's priorities for the Arctic and North. Selected submissions to the website from around the circumpolar world will eventually be published, in print and electronic form, to serve as an additional outreach tool.

North3 is the short name for this project, called, in full, "Your North is My North is Our North," a name which emphasizes that, despite its vast distances, the circumpolar world is a unified whole, rich in culture, history and natural resources, and facing common environmental, social and economic challenges. Through the website, young people are encouraged to share their views on the North in either English, French, Greenlandic, Finnish, Russian, Norwegian, Icelandic or Swedish.

The North3 website has been supported by the Northern Initiatives Fund managed by Aboriginal and Circumpolar Affairs in DFAIT. It is part of a larger Arctic youth website called "Ookpik." Both are hosted by the International Institute of Sustainable Development in Winnipeg.