A music festival for people who 'eat a lot of fish': Pan-ArcticVision coming to Iqaluit

A big party, music, performers from across the Arctic, and lots of glitter — that's how organizers describe Pan-ArcticVision, a Eurovision-esque music festival in the Arctic. 

Now in its third year, Pan-ArcticVision is coming to Iqaluit in October, the first time the festival has had a North American host. 

Amund Sjølie Sveen, from northern Norway, started the festival in 2023 thinking it would be a one-time event, but it was such a success he decided to keep it going. 

"The point of the Pan-ArcticVision is to gather musicians from all the Arctic, different Arctic territories to meet and to try to build communities across these national borders of the North," he said.

After the first iteration in Vadsø, Norway, Sveen enlisted Siri Paulsen to help organize the event's second year in her hometown of Nuuk, Greenland.

Paulsen says that people in Arctic regions are so often forced to connect with southern communities for access to services, whereas the festival is a reason to connect with fellow Arctic residents to celebrate both differences and similarities of cultures. 

"We're trying to do something where we can also get to bond with other people who know what it feels like to not wear enough clothes in a snowstorm, or eat a lot of fish. You know, Nordic stuff, Arctic stuff," she said.

The festival takes place in Iqaluit on Oct. 18. Sveen and Paulsen are in Iqaluit this weekend hosting auditions at the Alianait Arts Festival on Sunday. 

"We put quite a lot of effort into finding musicians that work well together and that altogether shows this variety of music from the Arctic, different styles, different people, different genres, different cultural backgrounds," Paulsen said. 

She said the goal is to create a framework for exchanging stories, talking about music, politics, and just to have a really fun party.  

"I think something that we're very good at is knowing how to have a good time without hiding the things that we're struggling with," she said. 

The fact that the event has travelled first from northern Scandinavia to Kalaallit Nunaat, Greenland, and now to North America, Sveen said, is proof of the will for more circumpolar connection. 

"We share so many things, so to try to lower those barriers, the national borders, and to try to build this cross-border community, that is really the goal, I think, of Pan-ArcticVision," he said.