Pan-Arctic Vision contest heads to Iqaluit this fall

Iqaluit will welcome musical artists from across the circumpolar world when it hosts the Pan-Arctic Vision contest this fall.

“Pan-Arctic Vision is like a Eurovision, but for the Arctic,” said Amund Sjølie Sveen, the event’s artistic director, referring to the long-running Eurovision Song Contest involving performers from across Europe.

“It’s also very different because the scale is different, the purpose is different.”

This fall will mark the first time the event comes to Nunavut. The inaugural event in 2023 was held in Vadsø, Norway while last year’s was in Nuuk, Greenland.

The one-day competition is set for Oct. 18. The location hasn’t been announced yet.

One musical act is expected to represent each of the regions that attend this year’s Pan-Arctic Vision, Sveen said.

Those regions may include Nunavut, Yukon, Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Russia, and potentially various regions from within Scandinavia. However, that may depend on the cost to bring the performers to Iqaluit.

Viewers can watch the performances online, then cast votes from which the eventual winners are selected.

“We need to build community across … the whole circumpolar North, so that’s why we want to gather musicians from all these different Arctic territories,” Sveen said.

Pan-Arctic Vision held auditions at the Alianait Arts Festival on June 21 in Iqaluit to select Nunavut’s representative. Seven people performed in person under the big tent, while others submitted video auditions.

Shauna Seetenak, a rapper from Baker Lake, was announced as the winner at the end of Alianait.

When the actual Pan-Arctic Vision happens this fall, there won’t be just one winner, Sveen said.

Last year, Nunavut’s Iva & Angu — the throat singing duo of Ivaluarjuk Kathleen Merritt and Charlotte Qamaniq — won the prize for Most Arctic Song at Pan-Arctic Vision.

Other prizes given out included Most Revolutionary Song and The Song That Gives the Most Feeling of Community and Togetherness.

Nunavut also won last year as the region that “deserves to host the next edition of the Pan-Arctic Vision.”

That prize was selected by the Pan-Arctic Vision audience voters, and organizers are just as eager to make a special event happen come October, Sveen said.

“It’s really nice to be here, this [Alianait] festival, to experience the community and to learn because we haven’t been here before and we need to learn about this place in the Arctic,” Sveen said about being in Iqaluit last month.

“We want to make something that people here will enjoy.”