Arctic Encounter 2025~Navigating Governance: Land Use and Sovereignty in the Arctic

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The 11th Arctic Encounter was held at the Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center in Anchorage Alaska, July 30-August 1st, 2025 as well as the popular Far North Fashion Show held at the Anchorage Museum. This years Arctic Encounter was attended by participants of over 27 countries, including Arctic policy makers, Indigenous leaders, scientists, ambassadors, and business leaders in the North, US Military leaders, US government officials, artisans and fashion designers of the Arctic. 

Founder and CEO of Arctic Encounter, Rachel Kallander welcomed her newest family member, baby Jonah a bit earlier than expected this summer, which moved the event from April 2025 to late July, 2025. 

Libby Casey, Senior News Anchor of The Washington Post and Matt Hickey of Arctic Security Studies were two of many moderators that directed unique discussions of Arctic related topics, including, "Arctic Warfighters: Rapid Responses to an Evolving Northern Threat", "Strategic Ground: Greenland in the Center of Arctic Geoploitics", "Arctic Knowledge: Informing Policy Through Science", and "Navigating Governance Land Use and Sovereignty in the Arctic".

This year's episode covering the Arctic Encounter includes discussions of the sovereignty of Greenland and self determination of Arctic Peoples. 

Thank you for tuning into the Alaska Climate and Aviation Podcast.

Katie Writer

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You can visit my website for links to other episodes and see aerial photography of South Central Alaska at:
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Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:01):
Thank you.

Katie Writer (00:13):
Greetings and welcome to the Alaska Climate
and Aviation Podcast and I'mKatie Writer.
This episode is going to becovering this year's Arctic
Encounter.
It was the 11th ArcticEncounter and was held at the
Dena'ina Civic Center indowntown Anchorage, Alaska, July
30th through August 1st, 2025.
This year's Arctic Encounterwas attended by participants of

(00:36):
over 27 countries, includingArctic policymakers, indigenous
leaders, scientists, ambassadorsand business leaders in the
North, U.S.
military leaders, U.S.
government officials, artisans,and fashion designers of the
Arctic.
Founder and CEO of the ArcticEncounter, Rachel Callender,

(00:56):
welcomed her newest familymember, baby Jonah, a bit
earlier than expected thissummer, which moved the event
from April 25th to late July.
Libby Casey, senior news anchorof the Washington Post, and
Matt Hickey of Arctic SecurityStudies were two of the many
moderators that directed Thisyear's episode includes

(01:37):
discussions of the sovereigntyof Greenland as well as the
self-determination nation ofArctic peoples.
For starters, we're going tolisten to some of the discussion
that was on a panel that wasmoderated by senior news anchor
of the Washington Post, LibbyCasey.
The topic was navigatinggovernance, land use and

(02:00):
sovereignty in the Arctic.
I'll let some of the voicesspeak for themselves here with
starting with, let's see, Dr.
Liza Mack.

Dr. Liza Mack (02:14):
I would like to thank you for inviting me to sit
on this panel and to share someof

Mr. Nagruk Harcharek (02:38):
the We've got about 20,700 last day of
sharps.
Good afternoon, everybody.
I'm the president for the Voiceof the Arctic.
I'm originally from Alaska,which is the northernmost point

(03:00):
in the state, furthest northcity in the United States.
President of the Voice of theArctic, we're a 501c4 nonprofit.
We have 21 member organizationsfrom the different communities
on the North Slope, includingall the regional organizations.
And our mission is dedicated topreserving and advancing
cultural and economicindependence self-determination

(03:22):
for the North Slopes.
We bring everybody together andadvocate on issues that are
important to the members of ourorganization.
We do that within the state, wedo that in Washington, D.C.,
and considering the landscapeover the last, well, I guess
since 1971, it's reallyimportant that we come together

(03:43):
to be able to advocate forpeople since we're such a small
population that message becomesall the more powerful.
And because of the separationof the and the economic arms of
North Slope or all of Alaska,essentially, it was really
important to have anorganization like ours to bring
all of that back together, toadvocate for the needs of the
community, for the needs of thepeople, and to protect the
culture.

Chief Barbara Joe (04:04):
Chief Joe.
Hi.
My name is Chief Barb Joe, andI'm from Southwest Yukon
Territory in Lebanon.
The First Nation name isJamaican and Asian First Nation.
And in my language, you say...
We say, not quite chief, but

Unknown (04:24):
.

Speaker 04 (04:24):
And my First Nation name is

Unknown (04:27):
.

Speaker 04 (04:27):
And I was named after an elder my grandmother
gave it to me during a potluckwhen I was really young.
And my First Nation name is

Unknown (04:37):
.

Speaker 04 (04:38):
So maybe I'll try to do that later today.
Champaign-on-Azac First Nationis one of 11 self-governing
First Nations in the YukonTerritory.
And our First Nation has about41,000 square kilometers that
extend from Yukon and intonorthern British Columbia.

(05:00):
Of that, we own about 2,200square kilometers, which is
considered settlement land.
We have about 1,300 citizens.
And we have about 300 whichlive outside Canada, including
in Alaska and the United Statesas well.
So just a little bit of that.
And just also in our FirstNation culture, we do a land

(05:27):
acknowledgement to thetraditional people, the
anchorage area, for allowing usthis opportunity to be here.
So, buenos dias, Sholita.
May I allow them?

Unknown (05:41):
Yes.

Mr. Dickie Moto (05:42):
Good afternoon.
Dickie Morrow, I'm theNorthwest Park Borough Mayor.
I'm originally from Deerfield.
I moved to Coxview.
I've been the Borough Mayor formy second term.
Our vision for the borough isimproving living conditions for
all the residents we serve.

(06:03):
Our borough is pretty unique.
We have roughly 35,000 squaremiles.
All of that 35,000, 5,000 iseither ocean or rivers.
We're overseas, 10 villagesplus Coxview, which is the

(06:23):
helpings, that's where we'relocated at.
We've been all subsistencehunters.
We live off the land.
We do what we could to lowerthe cost of living in our area.

Katie Writer (06:47):
One thing that is unique about Alaska is the scale
of the lands that are managedand how complex it is for
everyone to work together withthe cultural aspects, the size
of the areas, and the culturesthat are also sustenance
hunting.
Here's Libby.

Libby Casey (07:12):
Keeping the environment pure, keeping the
resources ready and available interms of hunting, fishing,
everything else.
With development, maybe ChiefJo, you could follow up just to
talk about how you think aboutrespecting the land and the
people who live in the land withthose things you were talking
about, the eagerness that manymay have to develop and then, of

(07:33):
course, the economicopportunity that could come with
that.

Chief Barbara Joe (07:37):
The Yukon is growing.
We've seen an increase in thepopulation quite a bit in the
probably 10 years.
And my issue is always, problemthat we see popping up is
pollution.
We see things like very rich,big left, things that aren't

(07:57):
very good for our lands, ouranimals, the fish and plants and
whatnot.
We try to, as a nation, protectthe ability for citizens to
practice, practice what we callin Canada, the Aboriginal
rights.
It's always a struggle.
We've been speaking at ourYukon forum where we took me

(08:20):
with our free year, who is kindof the head of state at Yukon,
and the ministers, and trying topush for educating people and
newcomers about our treaties,about how we can work on this
together, how we need to be ableto explain how our treaties
work, and also our lifestylesthat We've been in the Iran for

(08:44):
millennia and we'll continue tobe there.

Katie Writer (08:47):
One of the common themes across the panels of this
year's Arctic Encounter is justthe importance of the growth
that is happening in the Arctic,the importance of honoring the
Native peoples that already livethere.
Here's Erin of the DoyenCompany explaining a little bit

(09:10):
more about that.

Mr. Aaron Shutt (09:11):
In the Doyle region, we try to participate at
every level with the federaland state and local governments
as they make decisions.
We spend a lot of timeresponding to public notices.
We do consultation frequentlywith the governmental agencies,
even for seemingly minor things.

(09:32):
You know, Denali National Park,which is a very large park, has
a lot of cultural resources.
So even though it's Ourinterests are pretty far afield
from many people's perspectives.
We still want to know what'shappening because of those
cultural resources.
Sometimes our tribes are veryactive, and when they are, we'll

(09:54):
take a step back.
When a local tribe, theirhistory isn't involved, they're
the best people to be involved.

Katie Writer (10:04):
All the panelists were able to share their
thoughts on what some of themost important values were for
the Aleut people in workingtogether keeping their
traditions alive as well astheir voices heard.

Speaker 04 (10:20):
just total self-reliance, no fiscal
transfer of reinvents, no thefederal government, and we have
the ability to generate our owneconomies, our own income, and
be able to stand on our own withvery much, and this is kind of
part of our vision statement, avery self-reliant people who

(10:44):
always keep the culture and thelanguage with them.
Thank you.

Speaker 02 (10:50):
Just going to say a couple of words that come to
mind.
Opportunity and trust.
Allow us the opportunity toprovide for our people and trust
that if we're allowed to dothat, we will do what's best for
our people.
We will do what's best for theenvironment.
We will not threaten our way oflife in any ways, right?

(11:10):
So allow us the opportunity.
Keep those opportunities open.
Keep the doors open and trustthat we know what's best for our
people.
We know what's best for ourland.
We know what's best for ourcommunity and give us that
opportunity to be able to prove

Speaker 04 (11:25):
it.
Darren.

Mr. Aaron Shutt (11:26):
Yeah, well said.
We at Doyland have plans formany years of resource
development and other things tosupport our rural communities.
So, as you just said, trust us.
It's not trust me, it's trustDoyland.
The grandparents, instead ofgoing out and having this plan
set in motion 50 years ago andmaking decisions, people think

(11:49):
Aaron made these decisionsyesterday.
No.
Our people have been planningfor generations now on what
needs to occur to supporteconomic and community
development.
Some of these things mightbecome muscular to certain
groups.
But they're well thought out.
And again, we're the lastpeople that are going to damage

(12:10):
our own farms.
I spend as much time in Alaskaas I can and spread friends,
spread families, still lives.
If we care deeply about our ownlives, we will always protect
our own lands.
But we have to provide forthese communities and the
people.
So the children have goodschools, they're good jobs, a
home.
All these things have to gotogether.

Katie Writer (12:33):
And that voice was the voice of Arctic Inupiat
president, Mr.
Nagru Hasharek.
One can see from hearing howwell the panelists all work
together and listening to oneanother and adding their voices
in a very important, importanttopic of sovereignty in the
Arctic.
We're going to keep thisepisode short and sweet.

(12:54):
There'll be more to come,including some of the
sovereignty and voices of theleadership in Greenland.
Today is August 24th.
And I'm Katie Writer.
Thank you for tuning in to theAlaska Climate and Aviation
Podcast.
Talk to you next week.