Have we reached peak Arctic Circle?

On my way out of the Arctic Circle Assembly on its final day, I passed by a billboard on the heavily trafficked road skirting the shores of Iceland’s capital. On the left was a sign for the Arctic Circle conference. “All welcome!”, it beckoned in Icelandic, with no mention of the hefty registration fees. On the right was a sign for an upcoming Harry Potter concert, which will take place next month in the same venue as that of the conference: Harpa, the shimmering onyx jewel of a building designed by Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. (Back in 2019, I called it “hypermodern hygge”).

I was struck by the artifice of it all, which was amplified by two giggling students from China who were taking photos in front of the billboard. We started chatting animatedly and laughed at the silliness of placing an ad for the Arctic’s largest conference next to the wizards of Hogwarts. Then, after I explained that appearances can be deceiving and that I was not, in fact, another 20-something student from Asia, we exchanged Instagram accounts, proving that some platforms span generations and borders. One of the young women said she wanted to take her photo with me under the billboard. Bemused, I posed with her, Harry Potter, and the Arctic Circle.

Back in the “reality” of Harpa, the two most eye-opening sessions I attended were organized by Indigenous Peoples. At a conference whose headline speeches are often heavy on the platitudes, in packed side rooms, Native organization and corporation leaders offered close-to-the ground insights regarding the challenges they must overcome to pursue development and power on their own terms.

In a session on Indigenous economic governance, three leading representatives of Indigenous corporations and land-owning associations in Canada and Greenland alongside the CEO of the Société du Plan Nord, an economic development strategy launched by the Government of Quebec in 2011, spoke about possibilities for Indigenous-led northern economic development.

George Berthe, Executive Treasurer of the Makivik Corporation in Nunavik (northern Quebec), Canada, explained why it is so expensive to do business up north*. Makivik Corporation runs an airline, Air Inuit, which formed in 2019 out of a merger between First Air and Canadian North. But due to a lack of accommodation in the region, the company has had to focus on developing staff housing before growing the airline. Berthe explained, “We should be focusing on flying but we have to build a building, find the money, so the airline is now in the infrastructure or real estate business because there is no infrastructure.”

Despite these constraints, Makivik is looking to expand beyond the Canadian North. Sponsoring events like the Aqsaarnit trade show and conference held this past February in Ottawa, which highlighted companies and business opportunities across the region, is one way of currying investment. But Makivik is also looking beyond Canada’s borders.

Berthe attested, “Our next target is Greenland – hotels and tourism. The sector there is just gonna explode, and to capitalize on that, we’ll be ahead of the game.” Ideally, Greenlandic companies will prove receptive: Gorm Vold, chief adventure of Greenland-based Nalik Ventures said, “Traditionally, we look east,” for in that direction lies Copenhagen.

Overcoming national mindsets is key to fostering growth across Inuit Nunaat, the Inuit homeland, and imagining growth across the North that is driven by the north. Berthe underscored, “We have to work together, harder, to break down some of these artificial borders that have been imposed upon us.”

Reconceptualizing Indigenous sovereignty

The artificiality of these borders were on full display in an equally well-attended session on Indigenous sovereignty featuring thoughtful presentations by leaders from Inuit Nunaat to Kalaallit Nunaat and Sapmí. Each person spoke under a map of their region that superimposed their expansive homeland over national borders, many of which were erected during imperial or colonial times.

“The Gwich’in have no word for border,” remarked Edward Alexander, Co-Chair of Gwich’in Council International. “Our way of being, dinjii zhuh k’yaa, means taking care of the land, not taking from the land. That’s our sovereignty.”

A young man named David Heilman Ottosen from Inuit Circumpolar Council Greenland argued, “There is a real peril for Indigenous Peoples to model our sovereignty on colonial examples. It’s us who are going to be distorted. It’s us to remember the lessons that will be passed to us.”

Even origin stories often framed as liberatory, like Alaskan statehood, were exposed as violent myths. Chief Gary Harrison of Chickaloon Native Village, which represents an Ahtna Athabascan community northeast of Anchorage, contended, “Who voted for statehood in Alaska was not anyone who was supposed to. My cousins tried to vote but they got in a fistfight at the voting booth. The real people who were supposed to vote for statehood never did. They were supposed to do it according to the United Nations Charter, but they never did.”

All of the presentations challenged Westphalian views of sovereignty, which is based on fixed borders and territories – concepts anathema to nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples who move with the seasons, flora, and fauna.

Notably, the views expressed by these five representatives of Native organizations differed dramatically from those of the leaders of Native corporations and companies. Chief Harrison even averred, “The land claims act is a genocidal act. These corporations are genocidal because they were meant to destroy us.” Putting representatives from both types of Indigenous stakeholders onto the same panel – or even plenary – would no doubt have made for a hard-hitting discussion.

Marathon plenary sessions strain Arctic attention spans

The parts of the conference that fell flat were the plenaries. The first day saw nearly six hours of back-to-back plenaries – enough to test even the most dedicated fans of former Icelandic President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, who moderated nearly all of discussions. The patience of even those on stage seemed to be wearing thin when former Norwegian State Secretary Maria Varteressian began introducing Norway’s new policy for the High North, which was released two months ago.

President Grímsson testily asserted that she had only been supposed to take questions rather than give a speech. Undeterred, Secretary Varteressian carried on. An irritated Grímsson attempted to cut her off while preventing her from fielding her own questions, too. The whole spectacle left the audience uncomfortable and confused. Grímsson chalked it up to 1,000 years of frustration that Iceland has had with Norway, but people wondered whether there was some more recent beef. Last year, much to the annoyance of Norway, which at the time was chair of the Arctic Council, the region’s leading intergovernmental organization, their plenary was not scheduled until the second day of the conference. Notably, China came first.

The tense mood on stage was a relative blip in the grand scheme of the conference. But it was compounded by the lack of official American and Russian delegations and the smaller than usual Chinese delegation. The ongoing government shutdown had prevented many Americans working for or funded by the feds from traveling, while Russians haven’t come since 2021, the last assembly to be held before before full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. I am not quite sure, however, why the Chinese delegation was smaller and lower-ranking than in years past.

As a result, one question that kept cropping up amidst the countless caffeinated conversations held over lavish platters of sjónvarpskaka (TV cake) and smoked lamb flatbread was: Is this the end of Arctic Circle?

The glittering halls of Harpa.

Is this the end, beautiful friend?

People may eagerly discuss the end of the Arctic, as one session called “Death of the Arctic?” suggested. Yet realizing that the Arctic Circle may have peaked could hit a bit too close to home.

Nevertheless, everyone could recognize that this year’s plenary speakers were not quite as exciting as in past years. The top-billed plenary, for instance, was delivered by Her Imperial Highness Princess Takamado of Japan. At first, people were perplexed as to why the princess of the world’s oldest continuous hereditary monarchy was gracing the stage. Yet her speech, which included brief recollections of her visit with her late husband to Baffin Island in the 1990s, when he was an exchange student in Canada, and a subsequent visit to Greenland, was convincing and moving, especially in light of her appeal for environmental action. The backdrop, which was comprised of the Princess’ bird photography, helped win over the audience, too.

Still, there was no equivalent to previous speakers such as United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who addressed the crowd in 2016, or former US Secretary of State John Kerry, who spoke in 2019 about his efforts to mitigate climate change.

Post-pandemic, 2022 sparked a resurgence of interest in the Arctic – and a boost to Arctic Circle, which, like all conferences, had felt the pandemic’s toll. Suddenly, all eyes were on NATO and Russia, which replaced climate change as the northern bogeyman. Discussions focused on the tense security situation, while boosters of pan-Arctic infrastructure became a bit more cautious. Why invest in a subsea cable when it might be severed? Why build an Arctic Railway when it might just offer the enemy an easy invasion route?

But by 2025, with the war in Ukraine soon to enter its fourth year, the security situation has simply become new normal. Initial fears have been channeled to fund militarization across Europe, both above ground and underwater. As just one recent example, German company Thyssenkrupp, best known for building elevators, also manufactures submarines. With defense stocks swinging upwards, Thyssenkrupp plans to spin off its minority stake in its sub business.

The Arctic Circle assemblies of the 2010s welcomed representatives of shipping and oil and gas companies. One might therefore expect the assemblies of the 2020s to feature military contractors. But given all their secrets, they don’t exactly seem the type to feature prominently at a conference where “all are welcome” and which is adjacent, at least in advertising space, to a troupe of fictional wizards. The Arctic is still hot – but many of those with the money, now, are not the chattering classes.

Where are the plenaries on rare earths and the crisis of climate science?

Still, the Arctic Circle could do more to make the plenaries cutting-edge. The conference could start by looking to the sessions that attracted the most people. Besides the ones on Indigenous economic development and sovereignty, many others overflowed with attendees. Critical minerals, geoengineering, science and technology cooperation and concerns (during which the moderator said to Dr. Greg Falco after his presentation, “Even to me as a realist, you take my mind to darker places,”) and eco-friendly Korean shipbuilding were all hot topics. Another session on “how to draw a glacier” organized by architects from Yale University deftly communicated the impacts of climate change through stark visuals to an audience that seemed younger and more artistic than average.

Moving some of these topics to the main stage might help to change things up – and better hold the attention of the conference’s 2,000-odd participants.

Why was there no plenary, for instance, on rare earths? This summer, New York-based Critical Metals, which seeks to develop the Tanbreez rare earth element project in southern Greenland, received a letter of interest from the U.S. EXIM Bank this summer offering a loan of up to $120 million. Then, just last week, the company announced it would raise $50 million from an “unnamed institutional investor.” Yet on the main stage, national governments and Indigenous Peoples’ organizations rather than the other non-state actors shaking up the Arctic took precedence.

Another topic meriting a higher profile is the crisis facing polar and climate science as a result of the US withdrawal from engaging on climate change, which President Donald Trump declared to the United Nations to be the “greatest con job” ever foisted on humanity. Yet such crucial discussions were relegated to plenary Q&As, sessions, and coffee breaks, where dejected Americans explained that yes, things are as bad as they seem. Organizing the plenaries based on a topic’s timeliness rather than the speaker’s rank might be a way to zap some energy – and relevance – back onto the main stage.

Geoengineering discussions cause tempers to flare

Where the plenaries lacked pizazz, the sessions – of which there were always far too many interesting ones taking place at the same time – made up for in spades. The geoengineering session provoked debate for evident reasons. Organized by Shaun Fitzgerald, who directs the Centre for Climate Repair at the University Cambridge, the session featured five panelists (myself among them), who sought to offer fairly objective and at times critical perspectives on geoengineering.

The first question came from an Indigenous woman who was sitting in the very front. Speaking loudly, she voiced serious displeasure with the session due to its lack of Indigenous representatives. Everyone on the panel accepted her point, which doubled down on the “Nothing about us, without us” mantra that Greenlanders, and many other Arctic Indigenous Peoples, are keen to convey. But the Icelandic man who spoke next disagreed with her tone, saying that despite how emotional geoengineering can be, we need to be able to have a peaceful dialogue about contentious issues because they affect all of humanity. Geoengineering is no doubt a topic that is only going to rise on agendas in years to come, and which demands inclusive debates.

The Arctic Circle Assembly lives to see another day

Mads Qvist Frederiksen, director of the Arctic Economic Council, announces the Arctic Encyclopaedia.

On the last day, the plenaries had a return to form. Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, Chair of the NATO Military Committee, gave the usual spiel that the alliance is committed to peace and sustainability – with a bit of bravado. “Our mission is to prevent others from militarizing and to prevent that the Arctic remains governed by international law – not by the law of the strongest,” he boomed.

“The Arctic can become a new Sahara scramble, a zone of rivalry and conflict, or it can become a space where cooperation is stronger than cooperation, where security can coexist with sustainability. We must protect our own flank. We have to uphold freedom of navigation and international law…The Arctic has always tested human endurance. Today, it tests our political wisdom,” he continued. I half expected some blockbuster movie trailer to start rolling.

After offering these Manichaean narratives, Dragone relaxed during the audience Q&A, which is always one of the highlights of the conference. No one ever knows who is going to ask a question, let alone what they will say.

Someone asked the admiral what his opinion of the Russia-China partnership was. Cheekily, Dragone quipped, “Russia looks at it like a marriage, but China looks at it like a love affair.” Everybody laughed, and the metaphor seemed on point, at least to me at first.

Later that evening, however, in the public geothermal baths which offer yet another reason why Iceland will no doubt remain a favorite gathering spot of “Arcticians,” I spoke to one of the few attendees who originally hailed from Russia. They did not appreciate the metaphor, suggesting that it implied that Russia is stupid. They underscored that Russia does not trust China, and that while Moscow might need Beijing economically, the Kremlin is not about to go all in. In other words, there will be a prenup.

Another set of questions came to Dragone from the head of the Chinese delegation to the Arctic Circle Assembly, Liu Xiangfeng, counsellor in the Department of Treaty and Law in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This was the kind of interpersonal, interstate interaction that proved the conference’s continued value: it is a place where publicly, adversaries can try to discover what the other is thinking.

Like Dragone, the Chinese delegate possessed a wry sense of humor. “China is glad that NATO will help to guarantee free passage of Chinese ships,” he smiled. He then went on to ask what might happen to the collective security guarantee, Article 5, if one NATO member were to attack another. Probably sensing a trap, Dragone ignored this question and instead answered the Chinese official’s less contentious ones.

Liu Xiangfeng, head of the Chinese delegation to the Arctic Circle Assembly, asks NATO Admiral Dragone a question.

“It is not down on any map; true places never are.”

As the conference came to a close and many attendees began heading south along the long, lava-flecked road to Keflavik Airport, I hung around for the final reception. While walking back to the venue, I passed by Hallgrímskirkja. By day, the church resembles a series of grim gray basalt columns. But by night, Iceland’s second-tallest structure glows like a fortress lit from within, as if it were in a Hayao Miyazaki film. This month, October, it is bathed in pink lights for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Every night on my way back to my hotel, a luminous fog hovered over the church, which the uninitiated could mistake for aurora. But on this final night, I glimpsed the actual northern lights. At first, I couldn’t quite believe my eyes. There was just no way the ionosphere would have begun its winter waltz right as I walked by the church. But indeed, that’s what was happening. As with the billboard outside Harpa, fantasy and reality hung side by side. Whether in an ad or in the air, the Arctic – like all places colored by dreams and fantasies – always lies somewhere in between.

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*Makivik Executive Treasurer George Berthe spoke at length, and his comments were so eye-opening that am tempted to post what he said verbatim as an entire blog post to archive it. Stay tuned.