Who Owns the Arctic?

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.

Melting Arctic ice clears the way for supertanker voyages

Scandinavian shipowners say cargo routes through the Arctic, made possible by warmer temperatures, would save money and emissions

John Vidal, The Guardian, 5 October 2011

The image above was made from observations collected by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer and shows the extent of sea ice melt. The yellow outline shows the median minimum ice extent for 1979/2000. Photograph: Aqua/NASA

Supertankers and giant cargo ships could next year travel regularly between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans via the Arctic to save time, money and emissions, say Scandinavian shipowners.

Peaceful competition on Arctic ice

Michael Byers, Toronto Star, 24 August 2011

AMUNDSEN GULF, N.W.T.—Two powerful icebreakers — one Canadian, the other American — have just met up in the Beaufort Sea, setting up the latest play in a circumpolar hockey game.

Together, the CCGS Louis S. St. Laurent and USCGC Healy will map the Alpha Ridge, a 2,000 kilometre-long range of underwater mountains running from the northwest flank of Canada’s Ellesmere Island toward Russia’s Wrangle Island.

Asian juggernaut eyes our ‘golden’ waterways

Michael Byers, Globe and Mail, 29 August 2011

“We are men of action. We get things done.” With those words, Ahmed Ali Al-Subaey, the Saudi-born CEO of South Korea’s largest oil company, set the tone for a conference on Arctic shipping held, significantly, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Most of the world’s cargo ships traverse the Pacific as they service the economic powerhouses of Asia. Fully 77 per cent of China’s oil imports pass through the Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia. In Beijing, this strategic weakness is referred to as the “Malacca dilemma.”

Some of the larger vessels can’t fit into the Panama Canal and must loop around the bottom of South America. Still more loop around Africa to avoid the pirate-infested approaches to the Suez Canal. The added distances impose unwelcome costs – in fuel, salaries and foregone business.

Now, all eyes are turning toward another entrance to the Pacific: the relatively deep, wide, pirate-free Bering Strait. To the east, the Northwest Passage offers a 7,000-kilometre shortcut between Northeast Asia and the Atlantic seaboard of the United States. To the west, the Northern Sea Route offers a 10,000-kilometre shortcut to Europe.

Rules for the North Pole

Michael Byers, International Herald Tribune, 18 August 2011

No country will ever “own” the North Pole, which is located roughly 400 miles to the north of any land. The central Arctic Ocean belongs to humanity; its challenges are the responsibility of all nations. Those challenges — of life-threatening accidents, oil spills and over-fishing — are increasing as the sea-ice melts and ships of all kinds gain access.

Time, Canada, to negotiate the Northwest Passage

Michael Byers, CBC.ca , 5 July 2011

With Arctic sea ice melting, at up to three times faster than scientists were predicting, the international battle over the polar region and the Northwest Passage, in particular, is also heating up. This week Moscow sent a nuclear-powered icebreaker to explore the extent of its northern continental shelf while Canada announced that this summer's annual military exercise in the Arctic will be the largest in recent history.

UBC's Michael Byers, the author of Who Owns the Arctic? Understanding Sovereignty Disputes in the North, says it is time for the federal government to start formally negotiating the rules around the Northwest Passage with the international community, the Americans especially.

It's never been easy for Canada to talk about the Northwest Passage with the U.S. The passage was the holy grail for explorers from Cabot to Hudson and Franklin, whose discoveries helped define our northern nation.

The Northwest Passage also constitutes Canada's most significant long-standing dispute with the U.S. It's a source of both pride and anxiety in our close but asymmetrical relationship.

Russia to submit U.N. Arctic claim next year

Thomas Grove (Reuters), 7 July 2011

MOSCOW - Russia said Wednesday it would formally submit an application to the United Nations next year to redraw the map of the Arctic, giving itself a bigger share.

Russia’s Norilsk Plans to Invest $370 Million to Double Arctic Shipments

Ilya Khrennikov, Bloomberg, June 28, 2011

OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, the largest Russian mining company, plans to spend $370 million to double its shipments across the Arctic Ocean by 2016 as global warming allows the route to rival the journey through the Suez Canal.

Koreans Eye Mackenzie Valley Gas

Short on fuels, their LNG tankers are ready to fetch BC gas. Will they spark a latent NWT gas boom, too?

Liquified natural gas carrier: Korea planning icebreaking tankers.

Michael Byers, The Tyee, June 27, 2011

Among the denim-clad crowd at the Inuvik Petroleum Show, two well-dressed Koreans stand out like sore thumbs. Curious, I sit down with them at lunch.

"We're from Kogas," they say. "The Korea Gas Corporation." Why have they come here, to the Northwest Territories?

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.