Who Owns the Arctic?

You can’t replace real icebreakers

Michael Byers, Globe and Mail, March 27, 2012

A rugged little ship adorns the back of the new $50 bill that the Bank of Canada began circulating Monday. But, in an ironic twist of fate, the red and white CCGS Amundsen no longer sails the Arctic seas.

Russian maps suggest Soviet subs cruised Canadian Arctic

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press, December 6, 2011

The old Soviet Union may have been just as familiar with Canada’s Arctic waters as Canadians.

Sections of Cold-War-era nautical charts obtained by The Canadian Press suggest that Russian mariners have for decades possessed detailed and accurate knowledge of crucial internal waterways such as the Northwest Passage.

Those charts, which may offer the first documentary proof of the widely held belief that Soviet nuclear submarines routinely patrolled the Canadian Arctic during the Cold War, are still in use by Russian vessels. In some places, they are preferred to current Canadian charts.

Lawmakers confronting cold reality for pricey icebreakers

The United States is running short of icebreakers, with its only pair of heavy icebreakers, Polar Sea and Polar Star, sidelined in Seattle, one with broken engines and the other undergoing an overhaul to keep it running a decade past its life span.

Kyung M. Song, Settle Times, October 9, 2011

WASHINGTON — Climate change is melting parts of the ice-locked Northwest Passage. China is building its first modern icebreaker in hopes of staking claims to Arctic waters. Frigid polar regions are opening up to increased shipping traffic, scientific exploration and tourism.

Yet the United States is so short of icebreakers capable of navigating those still-unpredictable waters that since 2007, it has made the annual supply run to McMurdo Station, the American research outpost in Antarctica, with a ship leased from Sweden.

Arctic naval facility years from completion

The Canadian Press, May 29, 2011

Environmental and funding concerns are adding years to the construction of an Arctic naval port considered crucial to enforcing Canadian control of the Northwest Passage.

The Nanisivik port in Nunavut was originally supposed to be at least partially up and running by next summer, following a promise made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2007.

But no construction is planned for this summer and defence officials admit that the refuelling station, intended to give the navy a permanent presence at the eastern gate of the contested passage, won't be operating for years.

Danish warship sails into Greenpeace Arctic oil protest

Armed forces called in to prevent environmentalists interfering with Cairn Energy's exploration of Arctic waters

John Vidal, The Guardian, May 24, 2011

Armed Danish commandos are thought to have been landed on a giant oil rig by helicopter to prevent environmentalists interfering with a British oil company's controversial exploration of deep Arctic waters. In a stand-off in the Davis Strait, west of Greenland, the Danish navy has been shadowing the Greenpeace ship Esperanza as it tracked the 53,000 tonne Leiv Eiriksson in iceberg-strewn sea to the site where it plans to search for oil at depths of up to 5,000ft.

U.S. sees Harper talk about Arctic sovereignty as empty politics

Prime Minister Stephen Harper drives an ATV at the Tuktoyaktuk airport while visiting Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories on the fourth day of his five-day northern tour to Canada's Arctic on Thursday Aug. 26, 2010. A new Wikileaks cable suggests the U.S. government views Stephen Harper's talk about Canadian Arctic sovereignty as little more than empty chest-thumping designed to win votes. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Andy Blatchford and Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

A new WikiLeaks cable suggests the U.S. government views Stephen Harper's talk about Canadian Arctic sovereignty as little more than empty chest-thumping designed to win votes.

In a diplomatic cable posted this week by the online whistleblower, the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa says the Tories have made successful political use of promises to beef up Canada's presence in the Arctic.

But it says the Harper government has done only scant implementation on pledges like increasing surveillance over the Northwest Passage.

"Conservatives make concern for 'The North' part of their political brand . . . and it works," says the note, titled Canada's Conservative Government and its Arctic Focus.

UTC-built oxygen generator fails on U.S. submarine

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

ABOARD USS NEW HAMPSHIRE, Arctic Ocean | Mon Mar 21, 2011 

(Reuters) - The machine that produces fresh air aboard the USS New Hampshire submarine failed during a mission under the vast ice cap of the Arctic Ocean last week, prompting the submarine to use an alternate oxygen candle system instead.

Climate Change Poses a Major Challenge for the U.S. Navy in the Arctic

Lauren Morello & Dina Fine Maron, New York Times, March 11, 2011

Climate change will pose major new hurdles for U.S. naval forces, forcing the military to grapple with an emerging Arctic frontier, increasing demand for humanitarian aid and creating rising seas that could threaten low-lying bases, the National Academy of Sciences said yesterday.

Aboriginal consultations delay tender on key Arctic radar chain

 

Map of the North Warning System. Photograph by: Postmedia News, Canadian Military Journal/Department of Defence

BY ANDREW MAYEDA, POSTMEDIA NEWS JANUARY 13, 2011

OTTAWA — The Harper government has put on hold its search for bidders to operate and maintain the chain of early-warning radars that guards against foreign incursions into Canadian and U.S. airspace in the Far North, Postmedia News has learned.

The North Warning System, a chain of 47 unmanned radars that lines the Arctic coast from Alaska to Labrador, is operated and maintained by Nasittuq Corp. under a 10-year, $624-million contract that ends Sept. 30 this year.

Tory focus on Arctic sovereignty buoys poll results

 

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper talks with Chief of Defence Staff Walt Natynczyk while standing on an iceberg in Allen Bay in Resolute, Nunavut August 25, 2010. Photograph by: Chris Wattie/Reuters, National Post

Randy Boswell, PostMedia News, January 26, 2011

A new international survey on Arctic issues, which suggests Canadians have a stronger sense of possessiveness toward their northern territories than the world’s seven other polar nations, is being viewed by observers as an affirmation of the Conservative government’s steady focus on the region since taking office five years ago this week.