Kenneth R. Rosen

You know, going into the reporting and research, I was much like everyone else thinking that the Arctic was a thin sliver of our planet existing at the polar north and that it was just ice and polar bears.

And I also believe that it was delineated by this Arctic Circle, which is at 66 degrees and 33 minutes north.

And that was like the hard stop of where this region began and ended.

But the Arctic really is this conglomerate, if you will, of eight nations who possess either physical territory or littoral coastlines along the Arctic Ocean.

And to define the Arctic is a real challenge.

And I try to set out to understand what the different definitions were.

I mean, you could say it's where permafrost

ends you could say it's where the last tree reaches into the tundra the u.s government in fact says that the aleutian islands which are very far south of the arctic circle are part of the arctic so i took a loose definition and said the arctic is really where people believe the arctic is so if they think that they live in the arctic then that's the arctic for example iceland

is south of the Arctic Circle, and it only abuts the Arctic Ocean.

But they're completely an Arctic nation.

They believe they live in the Arctic.

Same goes for the folks in Fairbanks, Alaska.

It is just in the Arctic proper, but the climate's a little different.

And so if you're associating with the Arctic and feel as though you have a stake in this region that is generally populated by 4 million and then in the sub-Arctic, which is 13 million, and again, loosely defined as just this northern stretch of the world, then I feel as though that's appropriate to call you in the Arctic.

I mean, Juneau, Alaska, the capital of Alaska, is...

basically the Pacific Northwest.

It's rainy all year round.

There's not a lot of snow.

But those folks believe themselves to be Arctic stakeholders, and they are by virtue of living in Alaska.

So when you look at the world from the top, looking down, you get a sense that it can creep beyond the Arctic Circle, that this region has much more of a stake than perhaps you would get if you looked at the Mercator projection, which makes Iceland look like a thumbnail.