A retired Latvian professor’s tale about an 800-mile canoe expedition in northern Canada has been published by Toronto-based Natural Heritage Books.

The 176-page book, From Reindeer Lake to Eskimo Point, includes a foreward by George (Juris) Luste, a fellow Latvian who led the trip, Kazaks said.

The expedition took Kazaks, Luste and two other men from Reindeer Lake on the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border, north into Nunavut province to Hudson Bay, according to the publisher’s description of the book.

Kazaks, who studied at McGill University, Yale University and the University of California at Davis, is a retired physics professor from New College in Sarasota, Fla. He now lives in Davis, Calif.

From Reindeer Lake to Eskimo Point is available for CAD 22.95 direct from Natural Heritage Books.

Latvia will face Turkey in games Nov. 15 and 19 as it vies for a spot in the UEFA Euro 2004 football (soccer) finals, according to Latvian media reports.

The first game is scheduled at 8:15 p.m. local time in the Skonto stadium in Rīga, but the Nov. 19 match will be played in Istanbul, Turkey.

Latvia is one of 10 teams in the playoffs for a spot in the final tournament. The five winners of the playoffs will join 11 other teams already qualified for the finals, which are scheduled between June 12 and July 4 in Portugal.

Latvia earned a spot in the playoffs by gaining runner-up status in its group in qualifying games played between September 2002 and October 2003. Other national teams in Latvia’s group included Hungary, Poland, San Marino and Sweden, which came in first and advanced to the finals.

Other teams already in the finals are Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Switzerland.

The traditional song festivals of the Baltic states have been proclaimed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as one of 28 new “Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.”

The Paris-based UNESCO’s proclamation is aimed at raising public awareness of cultural heritage, as well as to urge governments to safeguard it.

In naming the song festivals, UNESCO highlighted the historical importance of the events in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

But the organization also raised concerns about their future.

“Today’s principal threats stem from the rural exodus and the resulting break up of local amateur groups,” UNESCO said in a press release, “as well as the celebration’s exploitation by political parties and commercial concerns for advancing their particular agendas.”

UNESCO also added the cultures of Kihnu and Manija islands, off the coast of Estonia, to the list. The islands are inhabited by about 600 people whose geographic isolation has allowed them to preserve many traditional ways.

In 2001, in the first round of proclamations, UNESCO picked the tradition of cross crafting in Lithuania as one of the original 19 masterpieces.