ARCTIC: Canada's Promise of Inuit Cooperation & more – 29th July 2025

Góðan daginn from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Arctic Update from the 29th of July twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what’s going down North of the Arctic Circle!

The week kicks off with the Russian navy, and what they’re doing in Norway. On Wednesday the 23rd, the Russian Defense Ministry announced the beginning of major navy drills involving more than 150 vessels and 15,000 military personnel in the Pacific and Arctic oceans, lasting until Sunday the 27th.

While the drills themselves aren’t new, what is different this time is where in the Arctic they are taking place. On the 23rd, the Defense Ministry announced that its live fire drills will take place in a danger area. Only half of it is in Russian waters, with the other half located in Norwegian waters. This means that this week Russian warships fired live ammunition within Norwegian territory, in an escalation of political tensions in the far north.

There’s conflict for Alaskan schools too. On Thursday the 24th, news agency The Alaska Beacon reported that schools in the state are at risk of losing over $80 million US dollars in funding due to failing a federal aid test. States receiving federal impact aid must pass a disparity test, which ensures the gap between the highest and lowest-funded schools is under twenty-five percent.

However, the U.S. Department of Education determined Alaska’s funding gap exceeded the limit by nearly two percent, putting this aid at risk. Alaska’s Department of Education says the figures are misleading because rural schools face extremely high transportation costs, inflating their budgets. Officials are appealing the ruling, saying the loss of funding would deeply harm the state’s already under-resourced education system.

Elsewhere in Alaska, a tiny town might be getting a huge upgrade. On Tuesday the 22nd, The Alaska Beacon reported on the town of Whittier, famous for having a single building where almost all of its about 270 residents live together. Although tiny, Whittier is a hub for marine traffic due to its deep-water port. The town gets quickly overwhelmed by the visiting year-round, which hit almost 300,000 marine vehicles calling port in twenty nineteen.

Therefore, local officials are now studying the best ways to improve life in the town while allowing its valuable deep port to grow.

To learn more about this unique town, take a look at the link in the show notes.

An Alaskan project not moving forward though, is a controversial uranium mine. On Friday the 25th, the news platform Northern Journal reported that the company behind the mine, Panther Minerals, has abandoned the project. Even though the site of the mine, the Seward Peninsula in Western Alaska, is the state’s largest untapped uranium source, the local Indigenous communities’ fierce opposition to the mine, and Panther Minerals’s costs growing, made the company exit further development, citing logistical and capital considerations.

While another company could possibly resume the project, the huge costs involved in setting up a uranium mine in remote Alaska mean locals can celebrate their win against mining for the foreseeable future.

The largest Indigenous community of the Arctic, the Inuit, has a big political win to celebrate. On Wednesday the 23rd, Canadian news agency Cabin Radio wrote that the Inuit Circumpolar Council has been upgraded to permanent consultative status at the International Maritime Organization. According to the Inuit Council, this full status upgrade means that Inuit communities across the Arctic can now advocate directly on issues that affect their communities, lands, and waters, instead of lobbying via their national government.

With shipping in the Arctic accelerating rapidly, and largely within Inuit territory, it seems right that those who live in the north finally have a direct say in the future of the northern seas.

Speaking of the Inuit, on Thursday the 24th, Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister, visited Inuvik in the Northwest Territories to meet Inuit leaders regarding his plans to fast-track major infrastructure projects across Canada. Carney’s plans include transformational projects in the Arctic, such as a deep-water port in Nunavut.

Inuit leaders have expressed concern that these plans violate native treaties regarding the right for Indigenous communities to have the final say on what gets built on their lands. However, Carney has assured the Inuit leaders that he will honour the partnerships made to ensure the native peoples of Canada have control over their futures, to the relief of the gathered Indigenous leaders.

The northern territories of Canada have economic news to celebrate. On Tuesday the 22nd, P.J. Akeeagok, the Premier of Nunavut, announced that his territory, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories have signed an agreement with the province of Ontario to remove trade and employment barriers between the regions.

The agreement hopes to remove restrictions regarding certifications and licences for regulated occupations like doctors, nurses and teachers. Currently, a licensed nurse in Yukon may not be able to work in Ontario unless they retrain within Ontario.

The hope is that if something is deemed safe or qualified in one Canadian territory, it can now be considered safe for the whole country.

Moving over to Norway, where the solution to a declining population might just be money. According to the national broadcaster NRK on Thursday the 24th, in the Lebesby municipality of Finnmark, northern Norway, only about ten babies are born every year. Young couples have tended to move south to larger cities to raise a family where public services like schools and healthcare are more easily accessible.

But last year, the local Lebesby government began providing a stipend of up to $10,000 US dollars to parents who birth and raise their children in the region. As a result, in twenty twenty-five, there are expected to be fifteen new births, a fifty percent increase on the average birth rate.

Meanwhile, Norway’s Sami community has a more musical future on its hands. On Friday the 25th, the Norwegian Sami Parliament announced that it is supporting eight musical projects with funding of about $130,000 US dollars. The chosen projects include releases of traditional and modern music with accompanying music videos, and funding to send the singer Katarina Barruk to international music events to spread Sami culture internationally.

The Parliament believes that music is one of the most effective methods of keeping Sami culture from disappearing, and that these projects will help keep traditions alive.

The future isn’t looking bright for many Icelandic birds, though. The Icelandic Institute of Natural History has released its update to the national endangered bird species list, the first update since twenty eighteen. In that time, things have only gotten harder for Icelandic birds.

Among the forty-three listed endangered species, there are four new additions to the list, and the black-backed gull’s status has been upgraded to critically endangered. The Institute believes that the recent spread of avian influenza has played a major role in the continued decline of birds across the country, despite conservation efforts.

To take your mind off bad news, there’s a groundbreaking Arctic video game in the works. Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq interviewed Marc Fussing Rosbach, an Inuit filmmaker, on Thursday the 24th about his efforts to create the first-ever Greenlandic video game.

Rosbach has been working for two years on his untitled game, which he describes as an open world where you can explore both on land and at sea in a landscape inspired by Greenlandic nature and culture. With no release date yet, Rosbach hopes to receive funding to help bring this game to life soon.

Finally, one of the most defining features of the far north is the midnight sun. That time in summer when the sun never dips below the horizon. But according to the Finnish Amateur Astronomy Association, Finland’s northernmost town of Utsjoki will be getting two hours of darkness in the early hours of Tuesday the 29th. Over the next few weeks, the rest of the Arctic will follow and welcome their first dark skies, bringing the twenty twenty-five midnight sun season to a close.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

Want to pass along an episode? Go to www.rorshok.com/arctic and download any of the shows as .mp3 files. Link in the show notes!

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