The article examines and discusses the development of the security concept in the High North from the turn of the millennium to 2010. Norway’s ambitious political undertaking of 2005, now known as the High North Initiative, and the activation of discursive processes whereby the security of the High North not only attracted greater attention but also became intrinsic to a widening array of policy issues. The objective is to show how current security perceptions are coloured by the past, and that conceptions and understandings of security are relational and open to continual change. The analysis is based on empirical data derived from Norwegian primary texts and Norwegian media through a large data set totalling 1,133 newspaper articles. Analytically, the article combines a Foucauldian discourse analysis with elements of the Copenhagen School’s securitization theory.