After high-level Arctic talks, the party moves to Anchorage, Alaska

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The Anchorage Museum is hosting North by North, a festival focused on issues specific to the Circumpolar North. (Al Grillo/AP/CP)
While the Arctic Council convenes in Fairbanks, the after-party is happening in Anchorage.

As delegates, dignitaries and stakeholders wind down high level council meetings, the Anchorage Museum is hosting North by North, a first-time festival focused on issues specific to the Circumpolar North.

The four days of events are meant to keep the focus on Alaska during international conversations about the future of the Arctic, according to Museum Director Julie Decker.

“If there’s a lot of people from outside looking in, it’s really important to have the inside represented by the people who live here, and to empower the voice of Alaskans at a time when there’s a lot of curiosity and interest in our place,” Decker said in a phone interview.

North by North will feature academic and policy-focused presentations on everything from U.S.-Russia relations to the status of global ivory bans on indigenous carvers. But there is also a push to reach a broader audience. The festival includes outdoor film-screenings, food trucks dishing out northern cuisine and roof-top dance-parties DJ’ed by global musicians.

Those same performers are also part of a formal panel discussion the very next day on the topic of “Arctic music.”

“The human qualities of the Arctic”

The festival is part of the museum’s deliberate effort to re-orient what comes to mind when people think of the high north.

“We want to celebrate the place we live in and the people who live here, and really we want to help change the narrative for our place,” Decker said. “Move it from the idea that we’re an uninhabited place of natural resources, and say, ‘this is a contemporary place that expects to grow, that is optimistic about it’s own future.’”

“We’re trying to put the emphasis on the human qualities of the Arctic,” Decker added.

The North by North festival kicks off with a live streaming of the Ministerial meeting in Fairbanks on Thursday morning. It wraps up Sunday with a craft-fair and Mother’s Day brunch.

A full schedule of the North By North festival is available here.

Related stories from around the North:

Canada: Canadian NGO wins Google grant to build ‘Wikipedia of Inuit knowledge’, Radio Canada International

Denmark/Greenland: Danish study shows healthy Nordic diet could help prevent stroke, YLE News

Finland: Finland’s foreign policy includes adorable Arctic emojis, Alaska Dispatch News

Iceland: Feature Interview: Hunting culture under stress in Arctic, Eye on the Arctic

Norway: Norwegian «slow TV» follows reindeer herd to the coast of the Barents Sea, The Independent Barents Observer

Sweden: Sami Blood: A coming-of-age tale set in Sweden’s dark past, Radio Sweden

Russia: Russia’s foreign minister visits Lend-Lease Monument in Fairbanks, Alaska Dispatch News

United States: ‘I Am Inuit’ goes from Instagram to museum in Anchorage, Alaska, Alaska Public Media


The Arctic Council chairmanship moves from the United States to Finland on May 11, 2017 in Fairbanks, Alaska. Eye on the Arctic’s Eilís Quinn along with EOTA media partners and contributors will be bringing you stories, interviews and analysis leading up to the handover.
Read our full coverage here!

Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media

For more news from Alaska visit Alaska Public Media.

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