An environmental activist may be the first Canadian to win the Nobel Peace Prize since former Prime Minister Lester Pearson in 1957.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, an Inuit activist, has been nominated jointly with former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore, the author of the book and narrator of the Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."

Watt-Cloutier and Gore top speculation that they will walk away with the prize over 181 other contenders when it's announced Friday.

Watt-Cloutier came to international prominence in the 1990s after fighting against organic pollutants that were accumulating in animals used for food and the breast milk of Inuit women. Her efforts paid off when a global convention banned chemicals believed to be responsible.

In 2002, Wall-Cloutier took over the leadership of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, which represents more than Inuit peoples in Canada, Russia, the United States, and Greenland. She quickly focused her attention to global warming issues, noting that weather patterns were thinning arctic ice and destroying Inuit culture and hunting lifestyle.

"People might ask who needs to hunt anymore," Watt- Cloutier told Canadian Geographic.

"The hunt is a powerful experience that sustains us spiritually and culturally. We gain wisdom from the hunt. It teaches us to be brave and to withstand stress, to be patient and creative. We learn sound judgment through the hunt. Without those skills, one can't survive."

In her fight for the survival of her culture and the global environment, she took legal action against the U.S. over greenhouse emissions at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The action was dismissed, but the suit raised her international prominence.

In 2006, she took the Conservative Government to task for rejecting the Kyoto Accord.

At the Canadian Environment Awards in Vancouver, where she was given a "Citation of Lifetime Achievement," she said Canada was walking away from its obligations when it knows greenhouse gas emissions targets are achievable.

"Canada is making a conscious decision to flout international law," she told the audience.

"The Government of Canada has promised a "made in Canada" climate change plan. This is fine, if it enables us to achieve our Kyoto obligations and puts us on the path for deep reductions in GHG emissions ... A made in Canada plan should engage not disengage Canada from the world."

Watt-Cloutier was born in Kuujuuaq, Nunavik, in the northern region of Quebec. There she grew up learning traditional methods of living off the land, and even travelled to school behind a dog-sled team.

At ten she was sent to school in Nova Scotia and later Manitoba. She also attended McGill University. Her father was a Canadian senator and her mother a traditional healer and musician.

A five-member committee in Norway awards the Peace Prize, but its work is extremely secretive. It does not even release the names of contenders, but those who nominate candidates have stated Gore and Watt-Cloutier are in contention.

Other frontrunners for the prize include President Martti Ahtisaari, who brokered a 2005 peace deal between Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement; and Irena Sendler, a woman who saved Jewish children in Poland during the Holocaust.

The Peace Prize is usually given to a person or persons who are involved in peacemaking and disarmament issues. But in recent years, the concept behind the award has been broadened to include democracy-building, environmental concerns, and human rights issues.

The Peace Prize includes a gold medal and US$1.5 million cash award.