Russian ship aided in Franklin find
Hosted donors, participated in sonar searches
OTTAWA — A Russian- flagged vessel played a key role in Canada’s recent discovery of a sunken ship from the missing Franklin expedition, a scenario that faced a regulatory challenge and gave senior Conservative officials pause.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has billed the Franklin search as an expression of Canadian sovereignty in the North — particularly in light of the “imperial ambitions” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A Russian- owned ship became part of the multi- partner Victoria Strait Expedition after it became apparent the Canadian alternative, a former coast guard icebreaker, couldn’t carry the private financial donors underwriting part of the search.
The Akademik Sergey Vavilov, crewed by the Russian Academy of Sciences, was chartered and operated by B. C.- based One Ocean Expeditions. The Royal Canadian Geographical Society helped put together a team that included One Ocean and other corporate sponsors to partner with the government in its search for the Franklin ships, lost around 1845. The Vavilov was to serve as a platform for the federal government’s state- of- the- art underwater survey vehicle.
By offering donors a chance to ride along, the non- profit geographical society was able to help pay for the expensive charter and also fund educational work across the country.
But when the details of the search partnership emerged, not everyone celebrated the arrangement.
Calgary- based GX Technology, which owns the ship Polar Prince, objected to the use of the Russian-flagged vessel with the Canadian Transportation Agency. The agency was certifying the temporary importation of the foreign ship.
Ray Pierce, an Arctic operations expert with GX and formerly of the Canadian Coast Guard, was critical of how the expedition itself was put together.
In the context of a multimilliondollar search for the sunken Franklin ships, using the Polar Prince would not have made a significant budgetary difference, he argued. The Polar Prince is not certified to bring tourist- type passengers. “We would have appreciated if there had been more openness in the early planning stages to permit that kind of dialogue and possible participation,” said Pierce.
The use of the ship was also scrutinized at senior levels of the Conservative government. The prime minister’s website describes the ship by its Canadian alias “One Ocean Explorer,” and makes no reference to its Russian ownership.
Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney accepted the argument that using a vessel other than the passenger- certified Vavilov could jeopardize the funding.
When the Franklin ship was discovered earlier this month by coast guard icebreaker Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Vavilov was 17 kilometres away.