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Arctic Yearbook 2013
Calotte Academy 2013
The sessions included about 40 presentations and hundreds of questions and comments and lively
discussions between participants which often
continued during the long hours spent travelling
together in the bus from one location to another
in the (record) warm spring weather of the
North Calotte
1
. Alongside the sessions, short
field trips and evening cultural events were
included in the Academy programme.
For example, the international group of
participants got a chance to visit a reindeer farm
and research station in Lapland where they met
with herders and local scientists; explore the
stunning nature and landscape of the Abisko
National Park in Sweden‘s Norbotten; and swim
in the freezing waters of lake Inari (Finland‘s
third biggest lake) after bathing/sweating in a
Finnish sauna by the lakeside after a long day‘s
work!
Not to forget the unexpected delay near Tromsø
where a (small) landslide had halted for several
hours all traffic coming in or out of Norway‘s
largest Arctic city and home to the Arctic
Council Secretariat. As the CA is a very flexible traveling symposium – where
unexpectedness
is always
part of the program – the international group took advantage of their layover in this unique Arctic
traffic jam and setting to meet with local residents who were equally stranded on the road.
Energy & Resources
Like every year, presentations in the CA sessions took a holistic view addressing not only the topics
of ‗resource geopolitics‘ and ‗energy security‘, but also discussing and problematizing the notions of
energy, resources, geopolitics, and security on their own. In the context of energy issues, both
hydrocarbons – i.e. oil and gas – and renewable energy sources such as wind were focused on; in
terms of other natural resources, especially questions related to emerging mining activities in the
Euro-Arctic were high on the agenda. On this issue, North Americans, Russians and Europeans
initiated lively discussions on the different mining cultures across the Arctic, and addressed social-
economic and environmental issues relating to mining extractive activities in the North. In general,
energy and resource questions were addressed on several scales and levels; while some presentations
took a case study focus on a particular energy project, mine, municipality or region, others looked at
these questions at the broader state level. Other topics covered debates surrounding the growing
extractive industries in various areas of the Arctic; social and environmental dimensions of Arctic
Nowhere to Go: Arctic Traffic Jam (photo credit: Joël Plouffe)