RESOLUTE, NUNAVUT—It was like a scene from central casting.

There was Prime Minister Stephen Harper standing on a pan of ice in the Arctic Ocean, next to a navy diver who had just emerged from the chilly waters. In the background was the Canadian Coast Guard ship Henry Larsen, her bright red-hued hull contrasting sharply with the white floes that dotted the waters.

Overhead screamed a military transport jet doing double duty as an airborne tanker, flanked by two CF-18 fighters.

As photo ops go, they rarely get more elaborate.

That’s become the script of Harper’s annual summer sojourns through Canada’s north — heavy dollops of nationalism, backed by carefully staged visuals and, through it all, the theme of a federal government making its overdue claim to Canada’s northern territory.

On Friday, Harper shrugged off the opposition criticism of his photo ops, saying the military were in place because of an exercise that was already underway.

“We don’t bring them for my trip. We come here to highlight the great work done by the Canadian Forces,” he said in Whitehorse, Yukon, as he wrapped a five-day northern tour that took him to all three territories and as far north as Resolute.

And he dismissed any political benefits of his Arctic initiative, suggesting he was pursuing a grander agenda — no less than building Canada.

“We’re not going to win or lose an election in the north. We’re doing it because this is about nation building. This is the frontier. This is the place that defines our country,” he said.

“That’s why the public responds. I think that’s why the public supports the expenditures we make up here.”

But no doubt, there’s a political upside. Harper was still in opposition when he figured out that talking up the North makes for smart politics down south, where most of Canadians live, notes Arctic expert Michael Byers.

“The term Arctic sovereignty resonates with Canadians. It touches some common element in our national psyche and is a lovely catchword that gets the nationalist juices going. Defending it, even if it doesn’t need defending, is something that Canadians tend to approve,” Byers said.

“From an electoral perspective, the Prime Minister is engaged in very clever politics,” said Byers, who holds the Canadian research chair in international law and politics at the University of British Columbia.

Indeed, Harper’s tough “use it or lose it” narrative on Arctic sovereignty has proven compelling, even if it implies a threat to Canada’s northern territory that doesn’t really exist.

As Byers notes, 99 per cent of Canada’s northern region is uncontested. There are boundary disputes with the United States and Denmark at the margins of the territory but Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon has signalled he’s prepared to negotiate those.

“There’s no threat whatsoever of Canada’s Arctic being challenged by other nation states trying to usurp our sovereignty,” he said in an interview.

For all the government’s rhetoric, the reality is sovereignty is not so much about defending northern boundaries against imaginary armies. Instead, it’s about the more tangible issues of making life easier for the people who inhabit this harsh region, ensuring that the military and other agencies have the skills to work north of 60, whether performing search and rescue or cleaning up after an oil spill.

“Sovereignty isn’t about lines on a map. It’s about everything that goes on within that space,” Whitney Lackenbauer, professor of history at the University of Waterloo, said Friday.

“Up north, sovereignty and security mean different things.”

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To the people of Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T., for example, it’s getting a year-round road to connect them with Inuvik and reduce the isolation of their town at the edge of the Beaufort Sea.

For members of the Inuvik Drummers and Dancers, it’s about preserving their culture that has been passed through the generations.

To Michael Miltenberger, deputy premier of the Northwest Territories, it’s looking after the people who live on the land.

“To us, the bedrock of sovereignty are the people of the Northwest Territories, in our communities, on the land, our Rangers, gatherings like this that demonstrate that the North is fully inhabited and we are fully part of Canada,” he told Harper during a stop in Inuvik.

Truth is, Ottawa’s approach to the North is undergoing a subtle transformation to put greater emphasis on those kinds of priorities.

The federal government’s new policy on Canada’s Arctic — released just over a week ago — highlights sovereignty but puts a focus on “important social, economic and environmental challenges.”

And some of that was on display this week as Harper used a series of carefully staged announcements to highlight investments in a new research station in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, creation of a new maritime zone to protect beluga whales, spending on social housing in the Yukon and funding for a new constellation of satellites to keep better vigil over the Arctic and the country.

“Maybe it took some ‘use it or lose it,’ even though I hate that phrase . . . to put this on the agenda,” Lackenbauer said.

“Now that the Arctic is there, it’s good to see that message is broadening and that the government is suggesting that it’s prepared to ante up.”

As for Harper’s boasts this week that no other government in the past 50 years has done more for the north, Lackenbauer is waiting before passing judgment.

“He’s certainly promised more than any prime minister has ever done. But it’s really about ‘time will tell,’ and as a Canadian, I hope he continues to see this as a big legacy project and that he delivers on it,” he said.

At the very least, Harper’s annual trips north — this was his fifth — have become an investment in himself, as he appears to genuinely revel in the scenery, the people and the issues in ways never seen on other official trips.

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