1) According to Morgunblaðið, a local news agency in Iceland, the country’s Foreign Minister, Guðlaugur Þór Þórðarson, has been hinting that the country may reopen to welcome foreign visitors in the near future.
2) Also in Morgunblaðið, it was reported that Iceland glaciers have been observed to have shrunk significantly in the past two decades, thanks to climate change. Jökulsárlón, a site in southern Iceland featuring melting glaciers, and one of the most frequently visited tourism destinations in the country, is a salient instance of how retreating ice has shaped the local landscape.
3) CBC, a Canadian news service, reported that Shadunjen van Kampen, a 21-year-old woman of indigenous background, has recently become a commercial pilot in Yukon, in the high north region of Canada.
4) The High North News published an analysis, written by Hilde-Gunn Bye, on the debates over a new quota system on fishing adopted by the Norwegian government. Norway, an Arctic state with an extensive coastline and marine resources, and numerous coastal towns, are heavily dependent on incomes from fisheries. However, disagreements over the quota systems have never ceased in Norway, and the new arrangement has received severe criticism, including that the system does not protect smaller-scale businesses.
Over the Circle 