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

CBC News

· Posted: Jun 22, 2025 6:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 3 minutes ago

A large party, music, performers from crossed the Arctic, and tons of glitter — that's however organizers picture Pan-ArcticVision, a Eurovision-esque euphony festival successful the Arctic. 

Now successful its 3rd year, Pan-ArcticVision is coming to Iqaluit successful October, the archetypal clip the festival has had a North American host. 

Amund Sjølie Sveen, from bluish Norway, started the festival successful 2023 thinking it would beryllium a one-time event, but it was specified a occurrence helium decided to support it going. 

"The constituent of the Pan-ArcticVision is to stitchery musicians from each the Arctic, antithetic Arctic territories to conscionable and to effort to physique communities crossed these nationalist borders of the North," helium said.

After the archetypal iteration successful Vadsø, Norway, Sveen enlisted Siri Paulsen to assistance signifier the event's 2nd twelvemonth successful her hometown of Nuuk, Greenland.

Paulsen says that radical successful Arctic regions are truthful often forced to link with confederate communities for entree to services, whereas the festival is simply a crushed to link with chap Arctic residents to observe some differences and similarities of cultures. 

"We're trying to bash thing wherever we tin besides get to enslaved with different radical who cognize what it feels similar to not deterioration capable apparel successful a snowstorm, oregon devour a batch of fish. You know, Nordic stuff, Arctic stuff," she said.

The festival takes spot successful Iqaluit connected Oct. 18. Sveen and Paulsen are in Iqaluit this play hosting auditions astatine the Alianait Arts Festival connected Sunday. 

"We enactment rather a batch of effort into uncovering musicians that enactment good unneurotic and that altogether shows this assortment of euphony from the Arctic, antithetic styles, antithetic people, antithetic genres, antithetic taste backgrounds," Paulsen said. 

She said the extremity is to make a model for exchanging stories, talking astir music, politics, and conscionable to person a truly amusive party.  

"I deliberation thing that we're precise bully astatine is knowing however to person a bully clip without hiding the things that we're struggling with," she said. 

The information that the lawsuit has travelled archetypal from bluish Scandinavia to Kalaallit Nunaat, Greenland, and present to North America, Sveen said, is impervious of the volition for much circumpolar connection. 

"We stock truthful galore things, truthful to effort to little those barriers, the nationalist borders, and to effort to physique this cross-border community, that is truly the goal, I think, of Pan-ArcticVision," helium said.