Who Owns the Arctic?

Russia sending more ships, scientists to Arctic

VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press, February 12, 2009

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia will modernize its icebreaker fleet and station more researchers in the Arctic as part of its push to stake its claim to the vast resources of the disputed polar region, a presidential envoy said Thursday.

An iron road across the permafrost

A Canadian iron mine company seeks to build a 143-kilometre private railway on Baffin Island

Oliver Moore, Globe & Mail, September 4, 2008

It will be the world's most northerly railway, a private line snaking across the permafrost and rock of Baffin Island at a projected cost of $10-million per kilometre.

The ambitious project is part of a plan to tap iron-ore deposits 900 kilometres northwest of Iqaluit. The plan is subject to regulatory approval and securing financing, but preliminary drilling is already under way, say officials of Baffinland Iron Mines Corp., which is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Russia to open scientific station on Svalbard

BarentsObserver.com , December 23, 2009

In order to strengthen its presence on the archipelago Svalbard, Russia plans to open a scientific station in the old mining village of Pyramiden.

Vice speaker in the Russian State Duma and special representative to the President on international cooperation in the Arctic and Antarctic, Artur Chilingarov, told that Russia has to prove its entitlement to the Arctic Shelf through presence in the area, news agency Strana reports.

- We are going to be all over the Arctic, Chilingarov said. We have opened a station on Franz Josef Land, where there has been no observation activity for 20 years, and we are re-establishing the network of polar stations. This is not just science; this is presence in the Arctic.

According to Chilingarov, Russia plans to build a scientific station and an observatory in already existing buildings in the old mining village Pyramiden in course of the next two years.