Coast Guard patrols Bering Strait

While Nome hasn’t been visited by the Coast Guard recently, the security cutter Midgett has paid Little Diomede a visit. Scott McCann, USCG spokesman, told The Nome Nugget that the Coast Guard has a long history of operating in the Bering and Chukchi seas and that the recent activity in the Bering Strait was part of an “ongoing, routine effort to provide a presence in the region and to work with our counterparts in Russia and Canada on shared maritime interests.”

McCann said that in late July, the crew of U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Midgett, one of the Coast Guard’s relatively new National Security Cutters, conducted combined operations and training with the Canadian Coast Guard Ship Sir Wilfrid Laurier in the Chukchi Sea, and conducted a joint patrol of the Maritime Boundary Line with the Russian Border Guard vessel Kamchatka north of the Diomede Islands.

“The Cutter Midgett is operating up north to defend US sovereignty and to support increased maritime traffic, such as enforcing fishing regulations, ensuring compliance with safety, and acting as a search and rescue resource,” McCann explained. “This may seem new because historically it’s been our Cutters Alex Haley and Douglas Munro out of Kodiak, but Douglas Munro was recently decommissioned, so you’ll see more National Security Cutters in the region in the future.” The Coast Guard Cutter Healy, one of the Coast Guard’s two operational icebreakers, is operating in the Arctic this summer, he said. They recently conducted a joint transit of the Bering Strait with the Cutter Midgett, and their role is more of a scientific one in concert with NOAA and other governmental agencies.

Asked about the recent gunnery exercise that Russia conducted west of Big Diomede, McCann said, “With respect to military exercises across the Pacific area, the Coast Guard subscribes to HYDROPACs for awareness and urges mariners and maritime corporations to subscribe as well, via the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency’s site https://msi.nga.mil/NavWarnings.”