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Arctic Yearbook 2013
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security threats, most generally related to the Conservative Government‘s reluctance to purchase
nuclear submarines and international activity in the Arctic (12 per cent of stories); and a
corresponding interest in the way in which the Arctic was increasingly the subject of international
cooperation and negotiation (11 per cent of stories deal with the international North).
While the percentages and emphasis are variable, what actually emerges in the 1980s is stream of
media texts which reflect both continuation, as well as a recombination, of 1970s tropes:
environment and science, economic development and military security and sovereignty. One of the
triggers for recombination and recycling of persistent themes in 1989, however, was the way in
which a shifting international context appeared to be changing the ‗great game‘. In context of the
end of the Cold War, the media was fascinated with the relationship between Canada and the
international community (specifically the Soviet Union), while still suspicious of its military interests.
Unlike the previous decade, however, the media began to focus upon the environment, and indeed
by 1989, the theme of environmental protection was increasingly represented in the media: almost
20 per cent of all articles referenced environment, most in context of its vulnerability, the impact of
the Cold War on Arctic environments (especially Soviet Arctic), and the need for cooperation.
Indeed, by 1989, it is clear that some significant shifts had begun to occur in the public discourses of
the Canadian Arctic (Table 1), and the assemblages by which the region was understood to represent
the ‗state‘. This was particularly true with the way in which ‗environment‘ was positioned as a means
of engaging southern Canada with the Arctic. The sense of the Arctic as a testing ground for
masculinity and state prowess had changed considerably, and was being increasingly defined in terms
of climate change. Scientists were more actively speculating about the way in which greenhouse
gases and industrial pollution were affecting global environments, and this speculation found its way
to the press. Of the some ‗1000 plus‘ articles on the Arctic, in 1989, for example, one of the largest
percentages dealt with the subject of a changing Arctic environment. No longer a testing ground, the
north signalled instead a shifting ground with potential environmental, political, economic and
cultural fallout. The threat of climate change, and the link between climate change and Arctic human
security broadly defined, was increasingly referenced.
This was the decade which saw the beginning of the Rovaniemi process, leading to the subsequent
establishment of the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy and the Arctic Council in the 1990s.
‗Environment‘ became a topic for state action, through a series of international meetings regarding
‗peaceful cooperation‘ in the North, which was subscribed to by the Canadian government. Indeed,
various scholars have recorded the history of this international cooperation which led to the
founding of the Arctic Council in 1996 (Heininen & Nicol, 2007; Axworthy, 2012; Keskitalo, 2004).
The lens of ‗state‘ was evoked through the international cooperation which the Rovaniemi process
of the 1980s subsequently triggered. It was initially coupled with a changing Cold War paradigm to
create a new awareness of environment, human security, and demilitarization (Keskitalo, 2004). At
the time, Griffiths reminded nervous Canadians, through the pages of the Toronto Star, that the
―Soviets‖ had proven to be good allies with respect to northern security and environment:
Canada and the Soviet Union, despite belonging to opposed military alliances, have long
had a good deal in common in their approach to Arctic waters in international law. For