For centuries, the “Arctic” and the “North” have served as projection screens for ‘Western’ imaginations. Within its long history of exploration and exploitation, the Arctic was constructed as white, sublime and untouched, as well as dark, frozen and terrifying. Particularly with the onset of the industrial revolution, the development of modern science and heightened imperialist expansion, the Arctic was not exempt from becoming a colonized territory. Seen as largely uncharted from a Western perspective, it became a playground for heroic deeds and scientific endeavors, resource exploitation and the exertion of political influences. Visual and literary representations played no minor role in constructing an image of the Arctic as one of the last places on earth to be explored and scientifically examined, while simultaneously advocating the frozen North as a wild, unknown and non-civilized territory. Contemporaneous colonial and racial discourses fed well into expansionist and interest-driven politics, with visual imagery making a significant contribution to justifying the colonization and exploitation of land and of its indigenous peoples. Nowadays, in the face of global warming, the Arctic has moved into the center of scientific, socio-political and economic discussions yet again, and has—at the same time—given rise to an increased production and distribution of scientific, popular and artistic images in the media and in the arts.