#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. Jean Chretien, a former prime minister of Canada, recalled his trip to the Far North when receiving the Order of Friendship in the Kremlin in 2004:
“I was once the minister of Northern Affairs and made a trip to Siberia. And then, after becoming prime minister, I worked closely with the presidents of Russia, Gorbachev and Putin”.
The twentieth prime minister’s career ended in 2003. Jean Chretien held this post for ten years, since 1993, and this was five years less than Pierre Trudeau did, who was a guest of Norilsk at the end of May 1971. Both the prime minister and the minister were driven by the desire to see the city built on permafrost with their own eyes. Perhaps to choose the path of development of the Canadian Arctic.
A year later, in March 1972, a delegation of Canadian specialists involved in the construction and operation of pipelines also visited Norilsk.
The result of international cooperation was an experiment with re-acclimatization, including in Taimyr, when musk oxen that had lived on the peninsula 2000 before were brought there. In 1974, the government of Canada donated ten unique animals to the Soviet Union. In September, six females and four males were released at the mouth of the Bikada river.
Text: Varvara Sosnovskaya, Photo: Nornickel Polar Division archive
