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Paper short abstract:

I discuss how contemporary U.S. travel writing consumes the seasonal landscapes of the Arctic and brands the Arctic. Based on National Geographic travel columns and official narratives from four U.S. Arctic National Parks and Monuments, I highlight the part travel writing plays in presenting the Arctic regions as globalized spaces.

Paper long abstract:

Contemporary travel writing tends to compress the wilderness of Arctic environments and the cultural connotations of "the place beyond" (Hastrup, 2007) into a geographic signifier that encourages tourists and outdoor enthusiasts around the globe to envisage a shared Arctic space. In the context of tourism's branding of Arctic landscapes and global warming, the imagery of the Arctic in travel writing is no longer a monotonous, timeless, and barren frontier but rather a globalized space with seasonal variations, colorful landscapes, and cultural history. While the consumption of different seasonal landscapes and their corresponding outdoor activities and expeditions in this new Arctic narrative retains some of the traits of earlier imperial/colonial heroic narratives, its writing about a community of life for diverse Arctic environments, recreation, inhabitants, and visitors challenges traditional Arctic narratives, anthropocentric ideas, and the declensionist narratives of climate change. In this paper, I examine the travel columns of National Geographic and the official narratives of four U.S. Arctic National Parks and Monuments, highlighting the role of travel writing in shaping the Arctic as a globalized space and deconstructing anthropocentric narratives.

Works cited:

Hastrup, K. (2007). Ultima Thule: Anthropology and the Call of the Unknown. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 13(4), 789–804.