Destination Arendal: Finding the Alaskan-Norwegian connection

“My family and many Alaskan families are immigrants from Norway,” said Lesil McGuire, US Senator from Alaska.

It was Friday afternoon in the culture house of Arendal, where one event was still ongoing in the main auditorium. It was a debate on the USA/Alaska-Norway relationship and the shared future of Arctic economic opportunities and challenges.

It had been a busy week. The political week of Norway had included over 500 events and brought together Norwegian politicians, policy-makers, business-leaders and NGOs. And a bunch of Alaskans.

It might seem strange that the city of Arendal (on the southeast coast of Norway) and a political week intended for mostly domestic Norwegian discussion, would be setting the scene for an Alaskan-Norwegian “get-together”. But during the week, the Alaskan delegation to Arendalsuka and the Norwegian High North delegation had spent valuable face-time together, and the somewhat odd match made more and more sense. By Friday afternoon the focus was more on the similarities than the differences of the two groups.

“Both Alaskans and Norwegians are people of the North,” highlighted Tore Hattrem, State Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Norway, during his opening remarks.

The debate covered a number of issues related to the Arctic, including the 20-year anniversary of the Arctic Council, environmental issues, and development and infrastructure. In essence, this was also a debate about how to foster increased Alaskan-Norwegian cooperation.

Tara Sweeny, Chair of Arctic Economic Council and Executive Vice President of External Affairs for Arctic Slope Regional Cooperation, mentioned four underlining principles that she believes could do just that: building trust, commitment from industry and governments, breaking down silo-mentality, and lastly “piggybacking” – in this context, creating alliances between networks and people so that it is possible to do more with less.

Throughout the remarks of the nine speakers, the emphasis on people and communities resonated the strongest with the audience.

“When people are first finding out about the Arctic, they´re finding out about it through the lens of climate change. It´s more than ice. It´s more than tundra. It´s more than sea mammals. It´s about people. The Arctic is us” – Lesil McGuire, US Senator (Alaska).

Daniel Skeldam, CEO, Hurtigruten, pointed to the same matter when he spoke about the tourism opportunities in the High North – “We should focus on the fact that a good place to visit, should also be a good place to live”, arguing that any route to tourism has to be based on consideration for sustainability and local communities.

For the Alaskan and the Norwegian High North representatives it had been a week of numerous debates and conversations on important topics and potential opportunities. Most importantly, it had been a meeting between peoples – and as it is, the people are the greatest resource of the Arctic.

The event was organized by Arendalsuka, Norwegian Parliament, University of the Arctic, Arctic Economic Council, Norway, High North Center for Business and Governance, Institute of the North (Alaska), GRID-Arendal, and Nord University.