ARCTIC: Denmark’s Defense Proposal & more – 22nd April 2025

Bures from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Arctic Update from the 22nd of April twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what’s going down North of the Arctic Circle!

The biggest threat to peace and stability in the Arctic remains the possibility of military action. With the US continuing to assert its firm intention to take control of Greenland, Denmark has proposed an immediate military response. On Thursday the 17th, Alex Arendtsen, a member of parliament and government defense spokesperson, published a proposal to send 100 troops equipped with missiles to Greenland in order to destroy any enemy ships approaching the country. He also proposed introducing conscription for military age adults in Greenland.

Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the Greenlandic Prime Minister, responded saying that Greenland already has a form of civilian military training in place, and that he doesn’t believe there is a need for a larger military presence in his country.

Greenland doesn’t operate a standing military force, and isn’t the only Arctic nation to do so. Iceland has never operated a military, and even in the face of increasing geopolitical tension in the region, the public still doesn’t want an army.

According to the results of an opinion poll conducted by Gallup released on Wednesday the 16th, over seventy percent of respondents are against the creation of an Icelandic Army, and only fourteen percent were in favour. Iceland remains a nation that seeks peace in the north above all else.

Despite the growing international tension, Russia’s Arctic ambitions continue to grow. On Monday the 14th, the Russian government released an energy strategy report predicting that while oil exports will stagnate by twenty fifty, natural gas exports could nearly triple —reaching over 400 billion cubic meters annually. Much of this gas would come from Arctic reserves, making Russia the world’s largest natural gas exporter.

However, this projection depends on Russia’s ability to navigate and overcome ongoing international sanctions targeting its Arctic energy sector. If successful, Russia’s Arctic region could become a global energy hub, transforming the country’s economy and increasing its geopolitical influence in the far north.

-mile, over: 1300

Finland is keeping a good relationship with the US, though, especially when it comes to icebreakers. The US is desperate to build new icebreaking ships and on Friday the 18th, the news agency Arctic Today published a story revealing that the Finnish shipyard, RMC, is in negotiations to build up to eight icebreakers for the US Coast Guard.

The initial plan is for the shipyard to build three to five medium-sized icebreakers at a cost of almost $3 billion US dollars, with another negotiation underway for the construction of three large icebreakers at an unconfirmed cost, estimated to be over $1 billion US dollars per ship.

The US has tried for over a decade to build its own icebreakers, but is turning to Finland for a job that could be extremely valuable to the entire Finnish economy.

Another area expanding in the American Arctic is the oil and gas industry. On Friday the 18th, the US Interior Department took its first steps to create a new wave of offshore oil and gas drilling in the Alaskan Arctic. The Department said it would begin taking public input for a new offshore oil and gas leasing program over the next forty-five days, then it will begin developing a five-year plan to create a series of drilling platforms on the outer continental shelf of the high Arctic.

While funding for oil and gas flows freely, Indigenous communities are facing cuts. On Wednesday the 16th, The Washington Post reported that President Trump’s administration has slashed $1.5 million US dollars from grants supporting research into historic Indigenous boarding schools. The funding was intended to digitize records, collect survivor testimonies, and help locate the graves of children who died at the schools (usually from healthcare neglect), with many of them being from Alaska Native communities.

The grants were part of the independent federal agency National Endowment for the Humanities. Trump has now cut funding to over 1,400 of its projects, saying these programs do not meet his political agenda.

Economic struggles are coming to one of Sweden’s biggest industries, forestry. According to a report published on Wednesday the 16th by the Swedish Forest Industries Federation, last year was the worst year for the industry since the nineteen nineties, and twenty twenty-five has continued the declining trend in demand for Swedish wood.

The forestry industry is vital to the Swedish economy, contributing about ten percent of the nation’s GDP. Northern Sweden is almost eighty percent forested, and numerous major forestry companies are based in the region.

But with global consumption of wood and paper declining, and the US recently issuing tariffs against Sweden, the outlook for one of the world’s largest wood producers seems bleak.

On another note, government funding in Canada is being used to help its remote communities. On Wednesday the 16th, the premiers of Manitoba and Nunavut announced that they have signed an agreement to work together on developing a proposed hydroelectric and fiber optic project. The project would see a line 1,200 kilometers, about 750 miles, long built through northern Manitoba to several northern Nunavut communities that use diesel to generate electricity, and have poor satellite internet connections.

While the federal government has already allocated about $1 million US dollars to create the plans for the project, the territorial leaders will now ask the government for about $1.2 billion more to build this potentially life-changing project for Nunavut.

In other news, the biggest prize in Arctic Canada has named its finalists. The twenty twenty-five Arctic Inspiration Prize is an annual competition that gives millions of dollars to projects that look to contribute to Canadian Arctic life, and announced its finalists for the over $700,000 US dollar prize on Tuesday the 15th.

They include the Qajuqturvik Community Food Center in Iqaluit, which wants to employ local hunters so the community can have a better supply of locally harvested food, and the Ujjiqsuiniq Search and Rescue Readiness Training Program, which wants to train youth across the Canadian Arctic to prevent accidents and emergencies happening in the wild.

To see the full list of projects and how they hope to help the Arctic, take a look at the link in the show notes!

The Arctic’s loudest celebrations this week came from northern Norway. On Thursday the 17th, Bodø Glimt made history by defeating Italian club Lazio in the Europa League quarter finals. The dramatic match ended in a penalty shootout, where Arctic-based Glimt’s goalkeeper, Nikita Haikin, saved two penalties to secure victory. Bodø Glimt became the first Norwegian football team to ever reach the semifinals of a European tournament. The team’s remarkable journey continues on the 1st of May, when they’ll face English giants Tottenham Hotspur.

Finally, the Indigenous Sami communities of Scandinavia are securing their cultural history. On Monday the 14th, Radio Sweden reported that UNESCO has given Memory of the World status to a collection of recordings from the early nineteen hundreds of the unique form of Sami music, the Joik. The archive was maintained by Lund University in Sweden, containing over 300 sound recordings and more than 500 transcribed joiks, all kept on phonograph and wax cylinders. This addition is the first time an indigenous people's cultural expression has been designated as a world memory by UNESCO, marking a significant step toward the preservation of Sami culture.

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

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Mana