It also has a museum, which is devoted to the region's most important resource, the Alberta tar sands.
In all, hedge fund assets devoted to the region rose 75 percent, to $21.4 billion, in 2010, according to data from Hedge Fund Research.
Places of interest Beamish: The Living Museum of the North (0191 370 4000, adults £18, kids £10), is 300 acres devoted to the region's history – complete with Edwardian town, pit village, and a WWII farm.
Events page The Pays Basque boasts a cuisine that spans the traditions of both French and Spanish cooking, and the picturesque village of Sare is organising a day devoted to the region's traditional products – Bayonne ham, piment d'Espelette (dried red peppers), Ossau-Iraty cheese (pictured above).
But it's now looking to make a bigger bet, specifically in Southeast Asia, with a $10 million micro fund devoted to the region, as well as the hiring of Malaysia-based entrepreneur Khailee Ng as its newest venture partner.
There's the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre, which tells the geological and fauna tale of the land bridge that linked Alaska to Siberia in the ice age, the Yukon Transportation Museum with its history of the gold rush days, and the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre, devoted to the region's original inhabitants.
The remaining one-third is devoted to the regions of Eastern Europe (10.9%), the Middle East (8.6%), Southeast Asia (8.6%) and global (unspecified region, 9.4%).
That puts the fund on a par with other global players the Carlyle Group, for example, which didn't enter Asia until 1998 but has raised $4 billion since then to devote to that region.
For most taxonomic groups, species records in this region need thorough revision, however, the estimated number of taxonomists devoted to invertebrates in this region is low, and most are focused on mollusks and crustaceans.
