The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Russia set to dominate Arctic unless Canada acts quickly
The Arctic Ocean is warming and with it maritime traffic on the Northwest and Northeast passages is increasing. The only Arctic nation that has the capacity to monitor and support such shipping is Russia. Neither Canada nor the United States have much to offer in the event of a maritime disaster in North American Arctic waters.
The Arctic Ocean is unique among the world’s oceans. It is not a broad expanse of open sea as the Atlantic or Pacific oceans but is rather a very large salt water lake with limited access or egress. For centuries explorers believed that sailing north from Europe would allow easy access to the Arctic region and transit from the North Atlantic to the Pacific and Asia. In virtually all cases these efforts ended in tragedy, as with the final voyage of Henry Hudson, when his crew mutinied as he was searching for the Northwest Passage. He and his son John were placed in a small boat and abandoned in Hudson’s Bay in 1611.
More famously the Franklin Expedition of 1845 under British captain Sir John Franklin brought two Royal Navy ships, HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, to an untimely end when both vessels became ice bound in Victoria Strait and all 129 men, including Franklin, perished.
The waters to the north of Siberia, Canada and Alaska are now open in limited periods each year as the ice retreats and limited shipping has started off both Arctic coasts. North of Russia shipping from Europe to Asia now takes place on an intermittent basis. In Canadian Arctic waters, cruise ships have sailed the Northwest Passage on occasion. In both northern sea routes, point-to-point shipping takes place regularly during the summer season.
Russia is far ahead of both Canada and the U.S. in creating ice-breaking capacity and particularly in the building of large nuclear-powered icebreakers. Their nuclear propulsion systems allow them to smash through much thicker ice than conventionally powered vessels giving them a full winter capacity to push through the up to three-metre ice encountered at that time of year.
Currently, the U.S. has two heavy icebreakers that are in their last days of service.
The Polar Star and Polar Sea have spent years moored because of the need for extensive modifications and upgrading. The Americans are now pondering the construction of three heavy icebreakers and three medium-sized vessels. The U.S. Coast Guard, which operates American icebreakers, is a branch of the U.S. fighting services (unlike Canada) and thus the new icebreakers would have limited fighting capacity.
Alaska's two senators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, recently proposed the creation of an Arctic Shipping Federal Advisory Committee to centralize discussions about shipping in Alaskan waters. The committee would make recommendations concerning Arctic ports and would look at one proposal that would create an Arctic “seaway” that would be established and monitored by the U.S. government and would provide icebreaker support for commercial vessels on a fee-forservice basis. This model has been called “Uber for icebreakers” because it would allow ships with little or no icebreaker capacity to sail the waters north of Alaska hiring icebreakers on a “pay-as-you-go” basis.
Canadian policy rightly addresses many issues that impact directly on the citizens of the North
This year Canada released a comprehensive Arctic policy framework that places the emphasis for future development on civilian development. The Canadian policy rightly addresses many issues that impact directly on the citizens of the North. It follows long-established Canadian policy based on the notion that full development of the Arctic's infrastructure, including services to civilians, will solidify Canadian claims to the Arctic archipelago. It is a wise policy which grows out of the simple idea that Canadian loyalties strengthened by roads, schools, hospitals, municipal services, etc., is the best way to cement the far North to subArctic Canada.
But for the most part the Canadian policy does not address Arctic shipping concerns. That is chiefly because the only way to address these concerns is by spending more money on the Canadian Coast Guard and the Royal Canadian Navy, something that both Liberal and Conservative governments have been reluctant to do. The late Conservative government proposed building the John G. Diefenbaker, a heavy polar icebreaker, but almost no progress has been made toward the actual construction.
The current fleet of Canadian Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships, now under construction, will have limited icebreaking capacity. The delivery date of the first of these ships, HMCS Harry de Wolfe, has just been pushed back to next year.
As a result, in the event of a grounding, or a spill, Canada will have little choice but to ask Ivan for help. This certainly is not a way to reinforce Canadian sovereignty off our Arctic coast.