Iqaluit gets ready for Arctic Council meeting

Ministers from the eight Arctic nations and the leaders ofnorthern indigenous groupsare arriving in Iqaluittoday and early tomorrow morning forthe Arctic Council ministerial meeting that will see the U.S. take over from Canada for its two-year term at the helm.

Hotels are fulland the city'sCadet Hall has been set up toaccommodate local,national andinternational media.

The meeting itself between the ministers andthe indigenous representatives, who holdpermanent participant statuswill be held in the chamber of Nunavut's legislative assembly. Most of those meetings will be closed to the public.

RCMPare tasked with security for the event.

"It will require security for all those accommodations,"saidSgt. YvonneNiego, spokesperson forNunavutRCMP."And, of course, the places they're staying and meeting and eating too, and that involves a lot of co-ordination,"

John Kerry to take over

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerrywill be in Iqaluit to mark the beginning of his country's chairmanship.

For many years, the U.S. only sent their Deputy Secretary of State or a lower ranking official to Arctic Council meetings. That changed in2011 whenHillary Clinton, then Secretary of State,arrived for theCouncil'sministerial meeting in Nuuk, Greenland.For many observers, Clinton's presence signaled a new era for the council and asign that the Arctic was becoming more of a priority for theUnited States.

Kerry,who took over fromClinton as Secretary of State, made his first appearance at the Arctic Council at the nextministerial meetingtwo years later in Kiruna, Sweden. That meeting took place just days afterPresident Barrack Obama released the U.S. National Strategy for the Arctic region.

Leona Aglukkaq, Nunavut's MP and then federal Health Minister, represented Canada inKiruna, prompting some critics to question whyCanada was not sendingits foreign affairs minister to the table.Aglukkaq later became the first federal aboriginal minister to head the Arctic Council.

Kerry's speech at that meeting may give an indication of what the U.S. will focus on during the next two years.

"The threat of climate change is as ominous as ever," he said in 2013. "Its effects are as tangible as ever, and the courage literally, the courage that we summon in the coming months and years is as crucial as ever."

While the U.S is sending its equivalent of a foreignaffairs minister, Russia will instead send it's Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, Sergei Donskoi.It's a marked departure from recent years and the ministerial switchcomes in the wake of tensions between Canada and Russia over Ukraine.

Community event Saturday

Still, Arctic Council participants hope this week's meeting will be productive and that the new U.S. chairmanship willbenefit the people of the north.

Inuit Circumpolar Council's chair Okalik Eegeesiaksaysthe U.S.should consider a theme that includesimproving living conditions for people in the North, especially when it comes tofood security and housing.

The ministerial meeting takes place on Friday. Someof the ministers will leave at the end of the day.

A community event will be held on Saturday, hosted by Nunavut PremierPeter Taptuna and Iqaluit Mayor Mary Wilman.