Climate change is transforming the Arctic. The ice cover on the Arctic Ocean is shrinking in breadth and depth, permafrost is melting, and indigenous flora and fauna are threatened. Questions abound about what these changes will mean for northern peoples and for stability and security in the circumpolar world. Political rhetoric in Canada has heated up, prompted by uncertainty about Canada's hold on its Arctic. Much of this discourse affirms just how little southern Canadians actually know about the north. Although Canadians pay reverence to “the True North strong and free” in our national anthem, the stark reality is that the vast majority lived huddled along the southern boundary with the United States. Ignorance about the Arctic breeds alarmism. The promise of cooperation and dialogue with northern Canadians and our circumpolar neighbors, which seemed to frame government plans in the 1990s, is often jettisoned in recent political pledges to “stand up for Canada.” If many academics and journalists are to be believed, the circumpolar agenda is dominated by a “polar race,” with a concomitant sovereignty and security crisis precipitated by climate change and competing interests in “our” Arctic.