ARCTIC: US Government Sued & more – 24th Feb 2026

Góðan daginn from Oakley! This is the Rorshok Arctic Update from the 17th of February twenty twenty-six. A quick summary of what’s going down North of the Arctic Circle!

In the closing episode of this Rorshok Update, we can find hope that the fight for the future of the Arctic is in good hands. On Wednesday the 18th, Friends of the Earth and Earthjustice announced they had filed a lawsuit against the US federal government to challenge a gas and oil lease sale in the Western Arctic that the Bureau of Land Management recently announced.

The planned lease sale is intended to open three-quarters of the National Petroleum Reserve in northern Alaska, a designated environmental protection area. The lawsuit asserts the federal government is failing to comply with laws requiring the executive to protect significant ecological and cultural values in the Reserve, which is one of the Arctic’s last remaining pristine environments. The environmental groups hope to ensure its long-term survival with this lawsuit.

There’s been a surprising twist in Alaskan oil developments elsewhere in the state. News agency, The Northern Journal, reported on Wednesday the 18th that a major new oil field in northern Alaska, operated by energy giant ConocoPhillips, is being sued by local Indigenous communities over a broken agreement.

The Biden administration planned the oil field and was able to proceed after coming to an agreement with the Iñupiaq village of Nuiqsut. The deal gave the village power to regulate development across 1 million acres, over 4,000 square kilometres, of caribou habitat, ensuring both oil development and cultural preservation. However, the Trump administration believes this deal harms the oil potential of the project and has pulled the plug. Nuiqsut leaders have sued the government, saying this act threatens decades of collaboration between the government and native communities in Alaska.

Canada is treating its Indigenous communities with more respect. On Thursday the 19th, Mandy Gull-Masty, the Indigenous Services Minister, announced a series of investments into Indigenous health programs.

The largest investment will be the allocation of over $80 million US dollars into extending the Inuit Child First Initiative until at least twenty twenty-seven, which provides essential health, social and educational services to Inuit children.

The government is also spending almost $50 million US dollars on a program to eliminate Tuberculosis from northern communities, on reducing food prices in isolated areas, and supporting food distribution to hard-to-reach populations.

Also, about $35 million US dollars are being provided to help build the county’s first Inuit-led university in Arviat, Nunavut.

The defining story of the Arctic in the last year might not be oil or Indigenous rights, but the continuing encroachment of conflict. On Tuesday the 17th, the Norwegian defence minister spoke with the National Defense Magazine, confirming that Norway, Germany and the UK have signed an agreement to improve cooperation in submarine hunting in the High North.

This agreement is intended to reduce the need for the US military to operate in the European Arctic and let European nations take control of their own defence needs. France and several other countries are expected to join shortly, creating a focused European effort to defend the Arctic against the increasing threats from Russia.

The rising threat of conflict in the Arctic is affecting everyone, even Santa. The city of Rovaniemi in Arctic Finland is called the home of Santa Claus, but on Monday the 16th, Finland’s Defence Ministry announced it has chosen Rovaniemi as the location of NATO’s Forward Land Forces headquarters.

The base aims to create a permanently stationed NATO force, strengthening the alliance’s deterrence and defence in the High North and the Arctic region, only 360 kilometres, about 220 miles, from the Russian border.

Change may be accelerating in northern Finland, but there are efforts to preserve the past too. In an article for the BBC published on Thursday the 19th, Erika Benke analyzed how special nurseries are helping the Sámi people in Finland to bring a language back from the brink of extinction.

Inari Sámi is an indigenous language that's only spoken in the area of Lake Inari in Finland. In nineteen ninety-five, it was recorded that there were only two families left speaking the tongue, leaving the language virtually gone.

However, an innovative program created by the Inari Sámi Language Association introduced the idea of immersing young children in the indigenous language. As a result, the number of Inari speakers has increased from a handful to over 500.

To read the wonderful success story of this program, check out the link in the show notes.

Another major success coming out of the north this week is in Norway, where the fairytale of the Arctic football team Bodø/Glimt, took another huge step towards greatness. On Wednesday the 18th, the first leg of the Champions League playoff took place at Bodø’s Arctic stadium against Inter Milan, a giant of European football.

Widely expected to lose after a noble first campaign in the competition, the team defied the odds to emphatically win by three goals to one. With this victory, Bodø/Glimt became the first Norwegian team to win a match in the knockout rounds of the Champions League. If they can avoid defeat in the second leg next week, Bodø fans may start to dream of the most unlikely success in the competition’s history.

Further north in Norway, there’s less welcome news. On Thursday the 18th, Norwegian newspaper VG wrote that the Institute of Marine Research studying Adventfjorden in Svalbard found something that could be seriously harmful to humans. The fjord has turned into a breeding ground, creating some of the most antibiotic-resistant bacteria ever discovered.

The capital of the Arctic islands, Longyearbyen, discharges its wastewater into Adventfjorden. This has led to a mixing of human bacteria with natural bacteria that used to lie dormant in the high Arctic. However, the warming ocean means this bacteria is waking up, finding human bacteria, and breeding to create a superstrain of bugs that, if it spreads into ocean currents, could be a threat to humans across the world.

It wouldn’t be an episode of the Rorshok Arctic Update without another story from the political tensions between US President Donald Trump and Greenland.

This week’s story began on Saturday the 21st, when Trump posted on social media that he would be sending a so-called hospital ship to Greenland to take care of people who are sick and in need of care not being provided by their own government.

In response, on Sunday the 22nd, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Greenland’s Prime Minister, issued a statement declining the offer of a hospital ship, saying that Greenland has free healthcare for all residents and is in no need of foreign support. He finished his statement by saying that Trump should make fewer random outbursts on social media, in a clear rejection of meddling in Greenland’s affairs.

There’s more hopeful politics happening in Iceland. Politico reported on Monday the 23rd, that Iceland is weighing a vote on restarting EU membership talks as early as August. When Iceland’s government was elected last year, it promised to hold a new EU referendum by twenty twenty-seven. But after the US’s year of threats and sanctions against other Arctic nations, Iceland wants to decide its future as soon as possible.

Finally, a story about the animals that make the Arctic their home, and how their lives will change as the climate shifts. According to research published on Wednesday the 18th by Japan’s National Institute of Polar Research, there’s been a breakthrough into understanding how seals in the Arctic eat.

The study found that the fronts of glaciers are an unexpectedly important feeding ground. The areas where a glacier meets the open ocean are where ocean nutrients accumulate, resulting in high fish populations, and a place where a seal can be assured of a good meal. This also means that, with widespread glacier loss across the Arctic, seals are quickly losing what seems to be a very important source of food.

However, with every morsel of knowledge we gain, we open up another opportunity to make a better world.

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

This is our last goodbye. We are very sad that this project has to come to an end. Thank you so much for your support for our experiment. We put so much effort into making these updates, so we hope you have connected with them and with us. We are really grateful to each one of you who has stuck with us until the end.

Again, thank you so much for being on the other side.

You can still contact us at info@rorshok.com. Who knows, we might get the Arctic update running again someday.

Adjo