LEWISTON – Spearheaded by Georgetown photographer Will Richard, a symposium examining social and political issues in the Arctic through panel discussions and a film will be held at Bates College from Sept. 29 through Oct. 1.

The discussions on Sept. 29 and 30 revolve around politics and the role of women in Nunavut, a new Canadian territory with a largely Inuit population. The symposium, which begins Sept. 26 with the opening of a photography exhibit by Richard at the Chewonki Foundation, Wiscasset, ends Oct. 1 with the 2001 film “The Fast Runner (Atanarjuat),” based on an Inuit legend.

“We can learn from these people that there are other ways of living and there are other values, other expressions of what constitutes riches,” said Richard, an artist, guide, educator and artist increasingly well-known for his photographs of the polar and near-polar regions.

The symposium “Political and Social Issues Facing the Newest Territory in Canada – Nunavut” takes place at 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 29, in the Muskie Archives, Campus Avenue. Panelists are Inuit leaders Aaju Peter of Nunavut, Meeka Kilabuk, originally from Nunavut, Richard and Chewonki President Don Hudson.

At 4 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 30, the second panel takes place in Chase Hall Lounge, Campus Avenue. Addressing the topic “Women of Nunavut: Changes in the Role of Women in Politics, Education, Workplace” will be Peter, Kilabuk, Professor Kati Dana of the Center for Northern Studies and Lindsay Dorney, adjunct professor of women’s studies, English and nature writing at the University of Southern Maine.

“The Fast Runner” will be shown at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 1, in the Olin Arts Center, Room 104, Russell Avenue. Filmed in northern Canada, the film tells the story of a hunter fighting for the affections of a woman who has been promised to another.

Reaching from the southern tip of Hudson Bay to the North Pole, Nunavut was created as a semiautonomous territory in 1999. It covers some 2 million square kilometers of beautiful, varied and barren landscape and is inhabited by 29,000 people, 85 percent of them Inuit.

A frequent traveler to the region, Richard is passionate about the lessons the Inuit and other Arctic peoples can offer the industrialized consumerist society. “We in the United States are rather myopic in terms of our appreciation for other cultures,” he said. “We can learn a lot from these people who can live on a landscape where there’s no way we’d be able to.”

The Arctic Symposium begins Friday, Sept. 26, with the opening of The Far Northeast: Window on a Landscape, an exhibition of Richard’s images of northern Canada and the Arctic, at the Chewonki Foundation in Wiscasset. A reception at 5 p.m. is followed by a 7 p.m. slide lecture featuring Nunavut Inuit leaders Kilabuk and Peter.

For information phone the foundation at 207-882-7323.

All symposium events are open to the public free of charge. People may phone 207-786-6295 for more information.

In addition to the Program in Environmental Studies, the symposium is sponsored by the Chewonki Foundation and the Falmouth-based Davis Family Foundation.