How to lose the Arctic and find it back

By Markku Heikkilä November 20, 2025
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The statue of rock star Andy McCoy stood in the centre of Pelkosenniemi in October 2021.

Some years ago, I printed 200 photos and put them in a hat. Then I placed the hat high on a shelf. Over the following months, I took the photos out randomly, one by one, and wrote about what I saw. All the photos were taken in the Arctic between 1996 and 2021.

That was how I began making my Arctic book. Only later, when I finished, did I realize that by doing this, I had documented an Arctic era that once existed but no longer does. Hence the name of the English edition of my book: Once We Had the Arctic.

First as a journalist and later as an Arctic science communicator, I have followed Arctic cooperation from the very beginning. I was there when the Arctic Council was founded in Ottawa in 1996, and for about 30 years I have been here and there around the Arctic—in meetings and communities, speaking with people and observing life across the northern regions of all eight Arctic countries.

That was doable then. Not anymore. Like many Arctic enthusiasts, I believed that this period of openness was the region’s normal state, but I eventually learned it was an anomaly.

In Svalbard, melting glaciers had been commercialized—fresh ice cubes served in tourists’ whisky glasses.

Based in Rovaniemi and viewing the Arctic from a Finnish perspective, nearby Murmansk and surrounding Russian areas were once natural places to visit. Cooperation in the Barents region was booming, and numerous cross-border networks were active. In 2012–2014, I led a project called Barents Mediasphere, an initiative to strengthen media contacts among the northern parts of Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Russia.

    Toward the end of the project, we realized something in Russia was changing. What had been possible only a few years earlier was no longer feasible. That was the year when Crimea was illegally annexed by Russia, yet I and many others did not fully grasp the implications, as borders remained open until the pandemic and several colleagues still had access to their research sites within Arctic Russia. Then Russia started a war against Ukraine, and that was finally the end.

    Near Akureyri, a group of Chinese researchers arrived in June 2014 to set up an auroral observatory, and villagers played the accordion for them.

    So there I was with my hat full of Arctic photos from a suddenly distant, innocent era, picking them out one by one and writing short essays based on what I saw and remembered. After shaping those pieces into a narrative, it became a book, published in Finnish in 2023 and, with some small updates, in English in 2025.

    Many readers have remarked that the book carries a sense of melancholy or sadness—and they are right. It is not easy to accept that the Arctic is now divided in two halves, the Russian half and the Western half, with no workable way to change the situation. Or rather, there is a way: a fundamental change in the Moscow regime. But during the Soviet period, a similar wait lasted 70 years. In the West, we are also seeing political leaders openly deny climate change, creating even more obstacles for what remains of Arctic cooperation.

    Security concerns and geopolitical anxieties now dominate Arctic discussion. They appear in my book as well, in their own way. I have tried to place current issues within the wider context of Arctic history, and some of the events I witnessed—such as the Chinese delegation visiting northern Iceland—now seem surreal.

    We are suddenly living in a new reality of division, tension, and militarization. When reflecting on this, I cannot help thinking about the Arctic a generation or two ago. Over the past century, the region experienced atmospheric nuclear tests, high tensions, an arms race, hard borders, prison camps across half the Arctic, near-destruction of Indigenous cultures, wars, and the formation of new states. There was no awareness of climate change then, true, but nor was there concern for biodiversity while whaling, hunting, and fur collecting continued across the region.

    Those conditions did not last. People began to understand what the Arctic needed: forms of exceptionalism. When geopolitics finally loosened after the first Cold War, enough people were ready to create something new in the Arctic. That can happen again with a new generation. The weight of geopolitics feels heavy now, and it has returned with full force, but I would compare it to an ice age: it seems overwhelming and eternal, but eventually there is a thaw and new possibilities emerge.

    Once We Had the Arctic – Journeys and Stories from the North (Into Publishing, 2025) is available internationally as an audiobook and e-book. For hard copies, contact [email protected].

    Markku Heikkilä, M.Sc., has served since 2010 as Head of Science Communications at Finland’s leading Arctic institute, the Arctic Centre at the University of Lapland. He studied journalism and international politics at the University of Tampere and previously worked as a journalist for the newspaper Kaleva in Oulu, where he closely followed the development of Arctic cooperation from its early days—a contribution for which he received the State Award for Public Information.

    Heikkilä has written several books and numerous articles, columns and essays on Arctic issues. His work focuses on making Arctic research accessible to diverse audiences and contributing to Arctic policy and stakeholder processes. The Arctic Centre’s science communication unit was named Finland’s Science Communicator of the Year for 2025. He also leads the international biennial Rovaniemi Arctic Spirit conference series, Finland’s leading Arctic policy event.