Arctopias: The Arctic as No Place and New Place in Fiction

Abstract

In fiction written from the outside, i. e., not by the indigenous population, an Arctic setting has long been used to emphasise the tough and heroic qualities of predominantly male main characters. The primary genres have been adventure stories and thrillers, with the region depicted as a natural rather than a social world. But there is also a counter-tradition where the Arctic is perceived as the route to or the place of an alternative world. Such utopian, or Arctopian works, appear in the nineteenth century when Arctic exploration maintained public interest and seem to reappear in the form of so-called cli-fi or climate fiction today. The works usually describe new forms of social organisation, and as a result, they contribute to changing persistent ideas about the Arctic as pristine nature. At the same time, genre characteristics rely on conventional ideas of the Arctic as empty space, which means that fantasies of the region continue to play a comparatively important role, despite increasing knowledge about actual conditions.