Who Owns the Arctic?

Toward a Canada-Russia Axis in the Arctic

Why Canada and Russia should unite to support a common position against the US in advancing certain Arctic claims

Michael Byers, Global Brief, February 6, 2012

Unlike the Antarctic, a continent surrounded by oceans, the Arctic is an ocean surrounded by continents. Most of the Arctic Ocean coastline belongs to the world’s two largest countries – Russia and Canada – each of which also owns territory on either side of a series of contested, and increasingly ice-free, Arctic straits.

Canada considers the Northwest Passage to be internal waters. Russia takes the same view of the Northern Sea Route. Both countries recognize that the thinning and melting of the Arctic sea ice pose environmental and security risks at the same time that they create economic opportunities in the form of increased shipping and access to natural resources. Both take the view that their domestic laws provide the best bases for protecting and developing their Northern coastlines. And both face a single, common source of opposition to their claims – namely, the US. All of this should beg the question: why have Russia and Canada not bolstered their respective positions by recognizing each other’s legal positions?

Russia, Canada neighbours? Seabed territorial push could bring borders together

Randy Boswell, PostMedia News, February 14, 2012

Two Canadian legal scholars have published a study showing how the push by northern nations for extended seabed territory in the Arctic Ocean could soon find Canada negotiating a maritime boundary with a new next-door neighbour: Russia.

Most of Canada's borderlands and boundary waters separate this country from the United States, including Alaska in the northwest corner of the continent. Canada also has maritime boundaries with Denmark (between Ellesmere Island and Greenland) and France, which oversees the tiny islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon south of Newfoundland.

But the possibility that Canada and Russia might one day share a border has, until now, seemed unimaginable given the vast ocean distances separating the two countries, and the relatively modest 370-kilometre (200-nautical-mile) offshore zone within which nations are permitted to exercise exclusive jurisdiction and resource rights.

But a recently revealed oddity arising from a Beaufort Sea boundary dispute between Canada and the U.S. — along with the advent of a UN treaty allowing countries to claim ownership over extended continental shelves lying beyond the current 200-mile limit — has highlighted how Canada and Russia could be on a cartographic intercept course somewhere north of 80 degrees latitude.

The surprising scenario is laid out in a lengthy article published this month in the academic journal Ocean Development & International Law and co-authored by University of British Columbia geopolitics professor Michael Byers, a leading Canadian expert on Arctic sovereignty issues, and his PhD student, James Baker.

The Russian Bear dominates the Arctic

To continue its dominance on the Arctic, the Russian Bear needs the help of foreign markets, investors and technologies.

Michael Byers, Al Jazeera.com, 3 January 2011

Vancouver, Canada - In the 1990 film The Hunt for Red October, Marko Ramius, the rogue captain of a Soviet nuclear missile submarine, evades the US and Soviet navies by maneuvering deftly through a narrow and winding - but precisely charted - mid-Atlantic trench.

In real life, the Soviet navy's charting efforts extended to the heart of the NATO-controlled Canadian Arctic. Soviet-era charts on board the Akademik Ioffe, an ice-strengthened ship owned by the Russian Academy of Sciences and chartered by a Canadian eco-cruise company, show many more depth soundings in the Northwest Passage than do comparable Canadian charts.

For the full text, see: Russian Bear

Russia pulling ahead in the Arctic

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin speaks at a transportation conference in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. (Nov. 2011)

Michael Byers, Toronto Star, December 29, 2011

NOVOSIBIRSK, RUSSIA—“Canada has a good working relationship with Russia with respect to the Arctic. There is no likelihood of Arctic states going to war.”

The Russian foreign ministry’s representative in Siberia smiles as he quotes the Canadian Prime Minister, as reported in a U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.

Although Stephen Harper never expected that his conversation with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen would be made public, the analysis was entirely correct. Here in Novosibirsk (pop. 1.5 million), people are more interested in trade and investment opportunities than geopolitical conspiracies.

Melting Arctic brings new opportunities

Changing conditions in the far north have sparked excitement and unfounded concerns over potential conflict.

Michael Byers, Al Jazeera.com , December 22, 2011

Vancouver, Canada - "For the first time in my life, I'm trying to find ice."

Alex MacIntyre was standing on the bridge of the Akademik Ioffe as the Russian-flagged ice-strengthened cruise ship traversed the Northwest Passage last summer. A Canadian ice-pilot with four decades of Arctic experience, MacIntyre remembers when the route was choked with sea-ice that was 10 to 15 metres thick.

Twenty-two ships sailed through the Northwest Passage in 2011. On the other side of the Arctic Ocean, 34 ships traversed Russia's Northern Sea Route.

The Arctic Ocean, which exists in a precarious balance between ice and water, is more susceptible to climate change than anywhere else on Earth. A so-called "feedback loop" exacerbates the situation: As climate change warms the air and melts the highly reflective ice from above, it exposes more dark ocean water which acts like a solar sponge, absorbing more energy from the sun and melting the remaining ice from below.

For the full text, see: Melting Arctic brings new opportunities

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.

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.

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.

Russia's Arctic Opening

As Moscow prepares to open the icy waters of the Arctic to offshore drilling, dangers abound. But it's also a moment of opportunity to get things right.

CHARLES EMMERSON, FOREIGN POLICY, MARCH 30, 2011

When it comes to Russian oil and gas, major deals with foreign companies are a good deal like London buses: Just when you're about to give up waiting for one to come along, three or four turn up at once.

Already, 2011 has been a bumper year.