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Blog – The Arctic shipping route no one is talking about

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Is the Transpolar Passage the shipping lane of the future? (Mia Bennett/Cryopolitics)
By mid-century – and perhaps by 2035 – a Transpolar Passage will open across the Arctic Ocean via the North Pole. Few countries are preparing for this reality except China.

I recently attended (via teleconference, to cut down on travel time and emissions!) a meeting on future maritime trade flows at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)’s International Transport Forum. One session focused exclusively on the Northern Sea Route, the shipping route along Russia’s north coast that has sat at the center of discussions on Arctic development for the better part of two decades now.

Due to Chatham House rules, I can’t quote anyone who spoke in the workshop. I can say, however, that during the session, it quickly became clear that talk of the Northern Sea Route’s potential was starting to seem passé in the face of rapid climate change in the Arctic. The shrinking and thinning of sea ice is happening faster than scientists thought possible – so fast that now, it’s not just the Northern Sea Route or even the Northwest Passage that people are talking about. They’re talking about a trans-Arctic passage cutting straight across the North Pole.

As climate change accelerates and the Arctic Ocean reluctantly exchanges its year-round ice cap for merely seasonal cover, a transpolar passage is likely to open up by mid-century, if not sooner. If Arctic sea ice disappears even for just one summer, as the comprehensive 2009 Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment notes (p. 34), this would spell “the disappearance of multi-year sea ice in the central Arctic Ocean.

Such an occurrence would have significant implications for design, construction and operational standards of all future Arctic marine activities.” In the absence of thick multi-year ice, which can be up to five meters deep, any water that refreezes would take the form of much thinner, more navigable seasonable ice.

In other words, forget needing nuclear icebreakers. Within the next few decades, in summer, it may be possible (even if insurance companies and the Polar Code still mandate polar-class, ice-resistant ships) to sail in a regular vessel across the top of the Earth.

Icebreakers: a short-lived technology?
The Rossiya (Russia), an Arktika-class nuclear icebreaker, returns from the North Pole on Aug. 8, 2007. (Vladimir Chistyakov/AP)

It was not until 1977 that the first surface vessel reached the North Pole. That ship was Arktika, a Soviet nuclear icebreaker which chugged to 90 degrees north from the industrial city of Murmansk. At that time, the Central Arctic Ocean was still in a deep freeze.

Scientific papers such as the 1973 Journal of Glaciology article describe how near the North Pole, “only 0.2% of the area was ice-free.” Such writing now reads like pre- rather than post-apocalyptic science fiction, chronicling once-upon-a-time worlds rather than worlds that might one day be.

It is both remarkable and terrifying to think that just ten or twenty years from now – and just some six or seven decades after Arktika’s historic voyage – ice-strengthened and perhaps even conventional ships may be able to reach the top of the planet. It is also astonishing that as recently as 2007, people were still talking about the “viability of transarctic nuclear shipping,” as the department head of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy suggested at a conference in Akureyri that year [2]. He was contemplating using nuclear ships to mitigate emissions depositing soot onto the ice cap that, by darkening it, would accelerate warming. But for better or worse, once the Arctic’s sea ice is gone, the additional climactic consequences of turning what was once white black will be a moot point.

Arktika’s trip to the North Pole was deliberately timed to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Ominously, it may also coincide with sixty years before the time when ships could sail directly across an ice-free North Pole. By one estimate, when the Arctic becomes ice-free – and this is almost surely to happen within the next few decades, if only in summer – this will mark the first time in 2.6 million years that the Arctic Ocean has lacked any sea cover.¹

At the stage when all the ice disappears, icebreaking will become a technology that, invented in its modern variant in 1897, was only really necessary for 150 to 200 years. Like the zeppelin and the Concorde before it, icebreakers will become a futuristic technology lost to history. Their early demise won’t be due to technological or financial failures, however, but rather because humankind made the surfaces it traversed obsolete.

The case for shipping via the North Pole

In a world where timeliness means the difference between loss and profit, the Transpolar Passage could prove enticing, just as the Northern Sea Route and Northwest Passage do. For journeys between Europe and Asia, the Northern Sea Route can already be two to three weeks faster than the Suez Canal. By cutting straight across the Arctic, the Transpolar Passage could save a further two days [1]. It might even make sailing through Arctic straits (the Northern Sea Route and Northwest Passage) “obsolete,” as one book suggests.

Fast shipping isn’t everything, of course. Besides time, shipowners also consider risks and costs, and polar shipping still is a more dangerous and pricier undertaking due to the advanced types of ships required, insurance costs, and icebreaker escort fees. Most shipping these days also follows the pendulum model, with vessels stopping at ports between their origin and destination the way to make deliveries. Also known as the hub and spoke model, this logistics chain requires markets, of which there are obviously none in the middle of the Arctic Ocean.

Developing the Transpolar Passage might therefore necessitate some creative rejiggering of the global shipping system. Mikaa Mered, professor of Arctic and Antarctic politics at the ILERI School of International Relations in France, and Adeline Descamps, editor-in-chief of the Journal de la Marine Marchande, have referred to this as a “reversed hub and spoke system.”

Ports situated at the Arctic Ocean’s Atlantic and Pacific gateways, like Dutch Harbor, Alaska, which already sees thousands of ships a year pass between North America and Asia, could become hubs for the Transpolar Passage. Cargo could be fast-tracked between Europe and Asia and North America via polar-class shuttles sailing across the Arctic Ocean. These ships also wouldn’t have size restrictions, as the Central Arctic Ocean’s bathymetry isn’t as limiting as the Northern Sea Route or Northwest Passage. Once out of the Arctic Ocean, cargo could be transshipped from places like Dutch Harbor to ports along the North Pacific, or, on the other side, from a place like Iceland to ports along the North Atlantic.

Local residents fish for salmon on July 12, 2008 from a set net anchored to the beach, in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. (Jim Paulin/AP)

Mered admitted over email, “I know that all of this may sound far-fetched.” But since he first heard the concept discussed at a closed-door Arctic business meeting in northern Norway, he has seen Chinese, South Korean, Icelandic, Alaskan, Russian and Norwegian stakeholders talking about it in greater and greater detail. Alluding to talk of investments in shipbuilding research and design, research taking place already within the Arctic, and infrastructure development, Mered concluded, “I don’t see now why this model wouldn’t emerge by 2050.”

These gateway areas, however – especially around the Bering Sea, where subsistence hunting and fishing is still a vibrant and critical practice – are also where the negative impacts of increased shipping may be felt. Along the Bering Strait, where the Northern Sea Route, Northwest Passage, and Transpolar Passage all meet, people living in communities such as Nome, Teller, or Dutch Harbor, Alaska could all potentially see more ships passing by, and maybe docking, by mid-century.

For them, though, this activity may not herald the start of a great new gilded age of connectivity and globalization. The appearance of open water will drastically undermine food security and permanently alter a way of life that has relied on ice and the beluga whales, walruses, and seals that flock to it for generations. To counteract these losses, in a 2014 workshop called “Bering Strait Voices on Arctic Shipping,” one participant suggested that the ships that are already docking could pay into a fund that contributes to protecting food security. Yet while money might bring more food into Bering Strait communities, it can’t bring back the ice.

China prepares for an ice-free Arctic Ocean

While most of the world buries its collective head in the sand when it comes to climate change, there is one country that is preparing – paradoxically, somehow both ominously and optimistically – for a future that is several degrees hotter: China.

The world’s largest nation sees a planet that is inevitably getting much, much warmer. Even if the planet were to stop emitting all greenhouse gases today, those that already have been emitted into the atmosphere will still induce warming effects for years to come. Since we don’t appear to be doing much to limit our emissions, we are headed for a warmer world – one where the Arctic ice cap may be gone in summer by 2050, and possibly even sooner.

Projection map showing the opening of a Transpolar Passage with the Arctic Ocean’s ice cover retreating over the next few decades. (Mia Bennett/Cryopolitics)

The only country that seems to be ready for that reality is China. In its Arctic Policy, released in January 2018, China calls the trans-Arctic passage the “Central Passage.” It is not referenced in any dramatic way. In that matter-of-fact, this-is-how-the-world-is tone characteristic of Chinese policy documents, the policy notes, “The Arctic shipping routes comprise the Northeast Passage, Northwest Passage, and the Central Passage.”

The strategy also mentions the Polar Silk Road, which is often viewed as synonymous with the Northern Sea Route. But keep in mind that the strategy notes that by cooperating with other stakeholders, China aims to “build a ‘Polar Silk Road’ through developing the Arctic shipping routes” – plural likely intentional.

Mered, the ILERI professor, described:

“When we talk about the ‘Polar Silk Road,’ we’re talking about a two-step idea. At first, shipping through the Northeast Passage, with all the limits we know. And then, when market and ice conditions show the model is viable, shipping through the Central Arctic Passage with the shuttle system.”

Meanwhile, other countries’ policies fail to mention any variants of the “Central Passage.” Norway’s Arctic Strategy, updated in 2017, doesn’t include the trans-Arctic passage in the full-length Norwegian version or in the shorter English summary. The former merely indicates (in Norwegian), “As ice conditions change, both the Northeast Passage and the Northwest Passage will be relevant for transport between markets in the Atlantic and the Pacific.”

Canada’s Arctic Foreign Policy only references the Northwest Passage. South Korea – an Asian trading nation with Arctic shipping interests – also describes only the Northern Sea Route in its Arctic Policy.

Iceland’s Arctic Policy, dating back to 2011, also fails to mention the Transpolar Passage. The country, however, which might have served as a sort of shipping hub for Viking voyages around the North Atlantic a thousand years ago [3], may be one place where the route has some resonance.

Last week, a contract was signed between Icelandic stakeholders and German port operator Bremenports to begin construction on a deepwater transshipment port Finnafjörður, a harbor in northeast Iceland, that would service vessels “crossing the North Pole capturing the Asia-Europe route,” as this promotional material (PDF) states.

The German company is not Iceland’s only investor, for farsighted China also appreciates the North Atlantic island’s geostrategic potential, as Malte Humpert and Andreas Raspotnik noted in their 2012 article on the Transpolar Sea Route. China and Iceland signed a free trade agreement in 2013, and last year, the China-Iceland Arctic Science Observatory opened outside Akureyri.

Finally, in the so-called “reluctant Arctic state” where less than a fifth of people surveyed know that the country has people and territory in the Arctic, the U.S., a new Arctic defense strategy is still in the works. In the meantime, a March 2019 Congressional Research Service report entitled “Changes in the Arctic: Background and Issues for Congress,” may give some insight into how the region’s shipping potential is perceived in Washington, D.C.

The document acknowledges only two routes in its section on commercial sea transportation: the Northern Sea Route and the Northwest Passage. It opens with the typical statement about how Western explorers have sought a shortcut from the Atlantic to Asia for five centuries. Little do they seem to realize, however, that Eastern explorers are now seeking that same shortcut, but right across the North Pole rather than around any continent.

Underscoring the outdated thinking, the report recognizes that since some experts predict that the Arctic will be ice-free in late summer by the 2030s, “this opens opportunities for transport through the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route.” Rather inexplicably, the map included is from 2008 – a year when there were 2.34 million more square kilometers of sea ice in October than there were in 2018 [4]. Not only is the figure over a decade old: it represents a time when there were only two conceivable Arctic Ocean routes rather than three.

The nearly 11-year old figure of Arctic shipping inexplicably included in the March 2019 Congressional Research Service report entitled “Changes in the Arctic: Background and Issues for Congress.”

How exactly would that figure look if it were updated? With Community Earth System Models (CESM) data kindly processed and provided by Scott Stephenson, a geographer at the University of Connecticut and Arctic shipping expert, I was able to mock up a few visualizations of how this would look. Scott has done fantastic work showing that new trans-Arctic shipping routes would be navigable by the middle of this century.

Sea ice concentration in these figures is based on the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5, as that is the situation for which we are most likely headed based on current emission levels. This would result in a world that is close to an average 4.9 degrees Celsius hotter by the century’s end – not the 2 degrees that the Paris Agreement is aiming for. For the purposes of the visualization, I noted that the Transpolar Passage was “open” when there was a clear route across the North Pole – yet sailing even outside these years may be possible, too, provided the ice is thin enough.

Animation showing the projected opening of the Transpolar Passage across the North Pole. (Mia Bennett/Cryopolitics)
The inevitability of a Transpolar Passage

One might argue that China’s efforts to drum up the Transpolar Passage is a form of geopolitical posturing. Unlike the Northeast and Northwest Passages, the Transpolar Passage would run mostly through the high seas, where all countries have freedom of navigation, rather than through any waters that could be claimed as internal. China would not be beholden to any government’s regulations when sailing there.

More than just an act of geopolitical bravado, however, China may also be trying to establish first-mover advantage in the Transpolar Passage because the climate science makes clear that a seasonally ice-free Arctic is nearly inevitable.

If there is to be a whole new blue ocean within our lifetimes, the real mystery is why other countries aren’t also preparing for an Arctic waterworld. Doing so would mean that rather than only focusing on building icebreakers for the near-term (which China is also doing), serious thought is also given to issues like safety at sea when ships are sailing past the remote North Pole and how to maintain the food security of communities in places like the Bering Strait.

Ironically, America’s procrastination even on short-term preparations like building a new icebreaker may end up paying off if it manages to drag out the debate for a few more decades. At that point in time, if icebreakers aren’t needed, at least the country won’t have laid down a billion dollars on an infrastructure with a built-in expiry date.

While some might be excited about the possibility of sailing across a new watery passage, merchant marines of the late 21st and 22nd centuries will not be able to write, as James Cook poetically did in 1778, of being “close to the edge of the ice, which was as compact as a wall, and seemed to be ten or twelve feet high at least.”

They may describe blue waves and white caps, but ice will be a distant memory, save for perhaps a few holdouts on Greenland’s rugged north shore. Sailing in an ice-free summer also won’t even deliver the joys of watching the aurora due to the 24-hour daylight. Sailor logbooks that recount the color of the aurora over the open ocean at the North Pole will have to wait until voyages during ice-free winters are possible. But those, too, will one day arrive.

Footnotes

¹ Evidence from tiny fossilized organisms called coccoliths suggests that there may have been some partly ice-free periods in the past 7,000 years.

References

[1] Melia, N., Haines, K., & Hawkins, E. (2016). Sea ice decline and 21st century trans‐Arctic shipping routes. Geophysical Research Letters, 43(18), 9720-9728. (PDF) [2] Icelandic Government. (2007). Breaking the Ice: Arctic Development and Maritime Transportation Prospects of the Transarctic Route – Impact and Opportunities. Akureyri, Iceland. p. 16. [3] Ibid. p. 2 [4] In October 2008, sea ice averaged 8.40 million square kilometers. In October 2018, it averaged 6.06 million square kilometers, representing the “third lowest October extent in the 1979 to 2018 satellite record.”

This post first appeared on Cryopolitics, an Arctic News and Analysis blog.

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Related stories from around the North:

Canada: Canadian Arctic report urges stronger ties with NATO, Indigenous communities, but weak on science, say experts, Eye on the Arctic

China: Details of China’s nuclear-powered icebreaker revealed, The Independent Barents Observer

Greenland: Controversy over Greenland airports shows China still unwelcome in the Arctic, Cryopolitics Blog

Norway: Beijing finds a Chinatown in Arctic Norway, The Independent Barents Observer

Russia: Russia is building a new Arctic with private investments, The Independent Barents Observer

South Korea: South Korea, an unlikely polar pioneer, hosts Arctic conference, Cryopolitics Blog

United States: U.S. must pay attention to growing China-Russia alliance in Arctic: expert, Alaska Public Media


Premier in Arctic Canada to push Ottawa for more military and icebreakers in the North

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Northwest Territories Premier Bob McLeod in Ottawa on Oct 3, 2017. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)
Northwest Territories Premier Bob McLeod is laying out a vision for the North’s future that includes an increased military presence and major development of Arctic waters for transportation.

“We need to position Canada’s North as a central international transport hub for the future of the Arctic and we see significant more infrastructure investment required,” McLeod said in a recent interview with CBC Politics in Ottawa.

McLeod said he’ll be presenting this and other ideas to the federal government in Ottawa within the next month.

The premier wants Canada to triple its icebreaker fleet within five years and triple its deepwater port capacity within 10 years.

“I think that you see other Arctic countries becoming significant players in the Arctic and we need to be sure that Canada and the North is ready for when that happens,” McLeod said.

Both China and Russia have shown growing interest in the Arctic. The Barents Observer of Norway reported in February that Russia plans to use supersonic jet fighters to make regular patrols of the North Pole, something Russia hasn’t done since the Cold War.

McLeod said the town of Inuvik, N.W.T., located 100 kilometres from the Beaufort Sea, should play a key security role.

“We’d like to see a full military base, preferably in Inuvik, of about 5,000 permanent personnel,” he said.

While the federal government announced last fall that Yellowknife, the N.W.T. capital, will be home to a new Arctic Region Coast Guard base, McLeod said there should be a base in the Beaufort Sea.

Officials from all three northern territories are meeting in Yellowknife on Wednesday. The Arctic Security Working Group will discuss safety, security and defence issues, along with the commander of the Canadian Forces’ Joint Task Force North.

It’s unknown whether McLeod’s vision of a more militarized North will be part of the federal government’s much-anticipated Arctic Policy Framework, which may be released as early as June.

The new Arctic policy initiative was announced in December 2016 to replace the 2009 Northern Strategy and the 2010 Statement on Canada’s Arctic Foreign Policy under Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.

The current federal government recently added foreign affairs and national security, as well as reconciliation, to the list of themes the new policy will address.

“We’ve been working with the government of Canada on a 10-year vision and plan for Arctic Canada and I’ve been going to a lot of Arctic conferences and realizing that Canada is falling way far behind the other Arctic countries, so we’re coming up with a plan where the Arctic will become a critical international arena of economics, science and infrastructure and environment strategy,” McLeod said.

Icebreaker U
The Coast Guard ice breaker Des Groseilliers sails in the water of the Arctic Archipelago. N.W.T. Premier Bob McLeod wants the federal government to build more ice breakers to serve the North. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

In order to increase understanding of the Arctic, McLeod envisions a Canada-wide civil service rotation program in which senior bureaucrats from the South spend time living in the North. He’d also like to see a federal department of Arctic affairs and a northern immigration program.

“We think that we need more immigration and the fact is we don’t have enough people up here. We’re also looking at having a permanent offshore Arctic university school on one of the existing icebreakers,” he said.

McLeod said he takes climate change and Arctic ecology “very, very seriously.” His vision for the N.W.T., however, remains steeped in fostering transportation corridors and pipelines to accommodate the oil and gas industry.

McLeod says innovation is needed to find alternate energy sources for 20 diesel-dependent communities beyond solar and wind, given that neither of those can supply continuous, year-round power to communities.

McLeod has been premier of the N.W.T. since 2011. He is the MLA for the riding of Yellowknife South. The next territorial election is Oct. 1.

With files from David Thurton

Related stories from around the North:

Canada: Canada’s 2019 budget slim on hard power Arctic commitments, experts say, Radio Canada International

China: Russia, China step up talks over Arctic shipping, The Independent Barents Observer

Finland: Authorities in Arctic Finland plan zones for controversial rail line, Yle News

Norway: Norway rearming in Arctic to face new security landscape, The Independent Barents Observer

Russia: Russia is building a new Arctic with private investments, The Independent Barents Observer

United States: U.S. must pay attention to growing China-Russia alliance in Arctic: expert, Alaska Public Media

Blog – At Arctic Circle Forum, China shows Arctic geopolitics are above Mike Pompeo’s pay grade

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China’s Arctic strategy focuses on policy and economic aspects rather than military and territorial control, says Cryopolitics’ Mia Bennett. In this picture, a Chinese worker looks on as a cargo ship is loaded at a port in Qingdao, eastern China’s Shandong province on July 13, 2017. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s swashbuckling fantasies aside, geopolitical competition in the contemporary Arctic is not about who controls swaths of continents or oceans. It’s about who will write the new environmental regulations, the new guidelines for development finance, and the new rules on community consultations.

“China, strictly speaking, is a near-polar country.” So remarked Wang Hong, administrator for the State Oceanic Administration of the Chinese Ministry of Natural Resources, during the opening speeches for the Arctic Circle Forum, an international Arctic development conference held last week in Shanghai.

A casual observer who wandered into the brightly lit dome-shaped auditorium in the city’s Science and Technology Museum might have found it hard to understand why discussions about the edges of the Earth had any reason to take place on China’s coastline. Yet as former Icelandic President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson made clear:

“The security of Shanghai in the future will be determined in the Arctic.” Former Icelandic President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, Arctic Circle China Forum

Sea level rise poses a major threat to Shanghai – a city declared by British and Dutch scientists in a 2012 study in the journal Natural Hazards to be the world’s major city most vulnerable to flooding in a climate-impacted world. Every chunk of the Greenland Ice Sheet that calves into Baffin Bay imperils Shanghai just a little bit more.

Sea level rise poses a major threat to Shanghai. (Peter Parks/AFP)

But as the high-level presentations made at the conference last week made clear, Grímsson’s statement should probably be reversed, for the security of the Arctic across all dimensions, from the environment to the economy and culture is increasingly being determined in China. In his speech, Wang, the State Oceanic Administration bureaucrat, noted:

“Shanghai and a lot of other cities around the world are so closely related to the developments in the Arctic, so what is important is that we should use cooperation to override the distance.” Wang Hong, Administrator for the State Oceanic Administration of China Ministry of Natural Resources

Enhancing cooperation is one way in which China, as a professed “near-Arctic state,” is trying to close the gap between Arctic states and itself. At the forum, various Chinese officials emphasized the country’s adherence to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), its participation in the Arctic Council as an observer state, and its bilateral relations with Arctic states.

Yet China is also closing that distance between its territory and the Arctic in ways both metaphorical and concrete.

Support for Indigenous peoples

First, Chinese officials at the conference have been surprisingly vocal in their support for indigenous peoples. Gao Feng, the Special Representative for Arctic Affairs within China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expressed, “China respects the cultures and traditions of indigenous peoples in the Arctic.” I asked a group of Chinese students what their biggest surprise of the conference so far had been, and they said it was the frequency with which indigenous peoples were mentioned.

This discursive appreciation of the importance of Arctic indigenous peoples takes place within a somewhat delicate and fraught context. On the one hand, China claims to have no indigenous peoples of its own (it has ethnic minorities, but in the official Chinese view, indigeneity is a result of colonialism, which is seen as a uniquely Western experience). But on the other hand, China has been promoting its own ethnic minorities as a way of becoming not just a near-Arctic state, but a more-Arctic state, too.

Near the escalator, an Evenki cultural exhibition organized by the Aoluguya Township Government in Inner Mongolia and the International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry showcased indigenous crafts for sale. One woman in traditional dress sat looking vacantly in the tent, while others chatted more animatedly outside.

A Chinese Evenki exhibition at the Arctic Circle China Forum in Shanghai. May 2019. (Mia Bennett/Cryopolitics)

In the afternoon, there was a conference session on “Indigenous Communities and Livelihoods in a Changing Arctic” with talks such as “Reindeer Protection in China’s Belt and Road in the Indigenous Arctic,” “The Way of Cultural Inheritation [sic] and Development of Chinese Reindeer Ewenki,” and “Studies of Chinese Near Arctic Peoples.” So not only is China a near-Arctic state: it has “near-Arctic peoples, too” – even if the government does not recognize these people as strictly indigenous.

Honing skills in Arctic waters

Representing the second and more literal way in which China is closing the gap between itself and the Arctic, Chinese companies have vastly improved their polar maritime capabilities.

During a session entitled “Paving the Polar Silk Road” – a task which seems impossible given the difficulty of laying asphalt on fast melting ice – speakers from companies like COSCO, the Chinese shipping company that owns more container ships than all but two other lines in the world, and PetroChina, part of China’s biggest oil producer, showed that if any country is willing to try to pave paradise and put up a parking lot, in the lyrics of Joni Mitchell, it’s China.

H.E. Zhang Xinsheng, President, International Union for Conservation of Nature, addresses the Arctic Circle Forum in Shanghai on May 10, 2019. (Mia Bennett/Cryopolitics)

In the Russian Arctic, construction on the second and third trains of the Yamal LNG project, to which Chinese investors have lent $15 billion, happened a year ahead of schedule. Yamal LNG now supplies 5 % of the world’s liquefied natural gas. Forthcoming projects in the area like Arctic LNG 2 are set to further increase the amount of natural gas sucked out of the Yamal Peninsula – a region that thousands of Nenets reindeer herders (a Western Siberian people, as opposed to the aforementioned Evenki, who are an Eastern Siberian people) still call home. Wang Haiyan, PetroChina International’s General Director, offered in a characteristically baroque turn of phrase:

“The Yamal LNG project, the Arctic LNG 2 project, and many other projects will prove to be the dazzling pearls on the Polar Silk Road.” Wang Haiyan, PetroChina International's General Director

More than just impress with megaprojects, Chinese companies are also venturing into the nitty-gritty world of polar logistics. In his presentation, Captain Meijiang Cai, a senior director from China Shipping and Sinopec Suppliers, explained how COSCO has operated 22 commercial voyages through the Arctic. These transits have endowed some 360 crew members with experience sailing in polar waters. Underscoring his point, Captain Cai showed a picture of two polar bears clinging to an iceberg, the type of image iconic of Arctic climate change, noting, “This photo was taken by our crew, so we have to pay attention.”

What was perhaps most surprising in the captain’s talk was not the numbers, but rather his call for more regulation of Arctic shipping. The Chinese captain explained, “We believe that the security of the Arctic Northeast Passage needs to be strengthened. In particular, related water depth data, navigation facilities, icebreaking pilot services, emergency assistance capabilities, and the application of relevant laws and regulations still require the joint efforts of the international community to explore and strengthen.” He urged:

“We need to introduce an ‘Arctic Integrated Governance Law’ that transcends national, regulatory and industrial boundaries, including the construction of an emergency assistance system with international cooperation.” Captain Meijian Cai, Senior Director, China Shipping and Sinopec Suppliers
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks on Arctic policy at the Lappi Areena in Rovaniemi, Finland, Monday May 6, 2019. During his speech, Pompeo asked: “Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims?”. (Mandel Ngan/Pool via AP)
No territorial claims

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mindlessly asked, “Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims?” The answer, even to China, is no. The country’s representatives have repeatedly made it clear that Beijing does not grasp at any territorial claims in the Arctic.

It might be wise, however, to keep an eye on the solutions Chinese officials propose to the Arctic, from the suggestion by Yao Zhang in The Global Times last month for an “Ice Silk Road” framework that could “represent a new direction for future Arctic governance and cooperation” to Cai’s call for an “Arctic Integrated Governance Law” when the International Maritime Organisation’s Polar Code already lays a solid framework for polar navigation.

In a sense, China may be trying to gradually shift norms in the Arctic away from their foundations in the West and instead towards the East. Chinese officials do this subtly when they talk repeatedly of the fragility of the Arctic’s “eco-environment” – an awkward but nonetheless distinctly Chinese phrasing – rather than using the more conventional “environment.” And they do this more directly in instances such as when Gao Feng remarked, “The Arctic calls for more environmental protection than any part of the world.”

Certainly, the vulnerability of the polar environment means that stringent regulations should be put in place. But you’d probably want these same rules applied in your own backyard, too. Thus, the Arctic may represent an instance of global powers leveraging the climate crisis in order to rewrite the rules – all in the name of the environment rather than land-grabbing and flag-staking.

Pompeo’s swashbuckling fantasies aside, geopolitical competition in the contemporary Arctic is therefore not about who controls swaths of continents or oceans. It’s about who will write the new environmental regulations, the new guidelines for development finance, and the new rules on community consultations.

The smoke-free “smoke-filled” rooms of 21st century geopolitics. (Mia Bennett/Cryopolitics)

In 2007, Naomi Klein wrote a landmark book called The Shock Doctrine in which she introduces the concept of “disaster capitalism” to explain how private capital takes advantages of crises and collective traumas to find new opportunities for profit, whether it’s Hurricane Katrina or 9/11. Similarly, the climate catastrophe that is unfolding across the planet – and twice as fast as average in the Arctic – may be creating an opening for new legal and regulatory regimes to be put in place. This is not the stuff of newspaper headlines nor Donald Trump tweets. But it is the stuff that will shape the future of the Arctic.

In short, Shanghai’s future will undoubtedly be affected by Arctic climate change and all the sea level rise and polar vortices it sends down south. But it is the discussions in court rooms and conference halls from Rovaniemi to coastal China that increasingly determine how we navigate the fallout.

This post first appeared on Cryopolitics, an Arctic News and Analysis blog.

cryopolitics

Related stories from around the North:

Canada: More assertive U.S. Arctic policy puts Ottawa and Washington on collision course, Radio Canada International

China: Leaders downplay divisions at Arctic Circle conference in China, The Independent Barents Observer

Finland: Did Finland fail as Chair of the Arctic Council?, Blog by Timo Koivurova

Iceland: Environmental groups call for action on black carbon pollution, Eye on the Arctic

Norway: Temperatures on Svalbard have been above normal for 100 straight months, The Independent Barents Observer

Russia: Russia, China step up talks over Arctic shipping, The Independent Barents Observer

Sweden: Nordic leaders stand united as they sit with Putin in Russia, The Independent Barents Observer

United States: Pentagon warns of risk of Chinese submarines in the Arctic, Radio Canada International

Justin Trudeau, Mike Pompeo discussed Arctic cooperation during Thursday meeting

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Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Trudeau’s office on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, August 22, 2019. (Chris Wattie/Reuters)
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discussed Canada-U.S. cooperation in the Arctic during Thursday’s visit by the top American diplomat to Ottawa, amid signs that Washington is growing increasingly concerned by geopolitical challenges posed by Russia and China in the North.

Trudeau reaffirmed “Canada’s longstanding position regarding Canadian sovereignty over the Northwest Passage,” according to a brief readout of the meeting with Pompeo released by the Prime Minister’s Office.

Later in the day, speaking at a press conference in Ottawa, Pompeo said that during the meeting with Trudeau he also stressed the importance of Canadian efforts in defence of the Arctic.

“Your expansive Arctic territory is the backdoor to the continent, and the Arctic’s strategic importance, including its vast resources and shipping lanes, are of increasing interest to the entire world, especially to China and to Russia,” Pompeo said. “The Trump administration is eager to work with Canada to increase our shared defence in the region.”

Trudeau’s reference to Canadian sovereignty over the Northwest Passage, a body of mostly ice-bound water that snakes through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, reflected Ottawa’s concerns over recent statements made by Pompeo and other U.S. officials.

U.S. Navy Secretary Richard Spencer told reporters earlier this year that Washington was exploring the possibility of sending a ship through the Northwest Passage this summer. In this picture, the USCG Icebreaker Healy on a research cruise in the Chukchi Sea of the Arctic Ocean, in 2018. (Devin Powell/NOAA/AP)

U.S. Navy Secretary Richard Spencer told reporters in January and again in May Washington is exploring the possibility of sending a ship through the Northwest Passage this summer as part of a freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) to assert its right of passage through what it considers to be international waters.

Spencer’s message was reinforced by Pompeo who told a meeting of foreign ministers of the Arctic Council in northern Finland on May 6, that the U.S. doesn’t recognize Canada’s “illegitimate” claim to the Northwest Passage or Russia’s sovereignty over the Northern Sea Route along its Arctic coastline.

Both Canada and Russia claim these passages are internal waters and argue that the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) allows coastal states to manage ice-covered waters.

A U.S. FONOP operation in the Northwest Passage would also violate the 1988 Arctic Cooperation Agreement, according to which the U.S. government seeks Canada’s consent for its ice breakers to navigate the waterways, while Canada engages to always grant access to U.S. vessels.

Pompeo’s comments also came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump scrapped a visit to Denmark amid a dispute with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen over her refusal to contemplate the sale of Greenland, an autonomous overseas region of the kingdom, to the United States.

Why the sudden interest in the Arctic?

Rebecca Pincus, an expert on the Arctic at the U.S. Naval War College, said the Trump administration’s sudden interest in the Arctic is probably a result of a few key individuals who entered positions with an interest in the Arctic region.

“The administration does not seem to be rigidly process-based, so individual policy entrepreneurs may have more ability to advance issues that might otherwise be on the sidelines of the policy agenda,” Pincus said. “The Greenland situation is a good example.”

Pincus said the U.S.-Canada process of updating and modernizing the binational North American Aerospace Defence command (NORAD) and the North Warning System radars also warrants serious discussions between the two neighbours and strategic partners.

Related stories from around the North:

Canada: Canada, U.S. must do more to check Russian military in the Arctic, says NORAD chief, CBC News

Finland: US missiles: Finnish, Russian presidents call for dialogue at Helsinki meeting, Yle News

Iceland: Nordic PMs sign climate declaration at Iceland meeting, Eye on the Arctic

Norway: Norway rearming in Arctic to face new security landscape, The Independent Barents Observer

Russia: Russian navy drill outside Arctic Norway ends, no firing reported, The Independent Barents Observer

Sweden: Sweden wants to rebuild its “total defence” system, Radio Sweden

United States: In the Arctic as in space, Russia and West can look past differences to pursue common 

As China adapts to a melting Arctic, Shanghai prepares for the worst

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For Shanghai, China, rising sea levels from Greenland’s melting glaciers are bad news. (Thomas Nilsen/The Independent Barents Observer)
China’s claims to be a near-Arctic state is not all about a Polar Silk Road and access to natural resources, but as well a deep concern about raising sea levels as the Greenland ice sheet melts.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center estimated that 55 billion tons of Greenland ice melted into the ocean during the unusual warm days between July 30 and August 2 this summer.

The news comes along with a growing awareness that sea levels may rise much faster than previously predicted by scientists.

For the 24 million people living in Shanghai that is very bad news.

This week, world leaders gather for the UN Climate Summit in New York to address the crisis. The summit is the most important since the 2015 Paris climate agreement on limiting global average warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

Shanghai is one of several megacities in the world at high risk of being flooded if nothing is done to curb global warming.

A recent study warns sea level rise could be twice as bad as the upper limit outlined in the last report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“For a +2 °C temperature scenario consistent with the Paris Agreement, we obtain a median estimate of a 26 cm Sea Level Rise contribution by 2100, with a 95th percentile value of 81 cm,” the report reads.

With global temperatures increasing by 5 °C by 2100, sea levels could rise more than two meters, according to the scientists.

The IPCC estimates that a full melt of Greenland and Antarctica will release enough water to cause a sea level rise of 70 meters. That, however, is not at all a near-future scenario, but more worrying for mankind is the knowledge that only a few per cent melt would rewrite world maps, and especially so in East- and Southeast Asia.

China would then be among the countries most affected with more than 45 million people living in low-lying coastal cities like Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tianjin.

An aerial view of melt water lakes on the edge of an ice cap in Nunatarssuk, Greenland in June 2019. (Keith Virgo/The Associated Press)

The potential catastrophic scenario was put on stage in Shanghai this spring when the Ministry of Natural Resources hosted the Arctic Circle China Forum.

Chief of the Ministry’s State Oceanic Administration, Wang Hong, said at the forum it is urgent to combat climate change. “What happens in the Arctic is important for people in China.”

The security of Shanghai in the future will be determined in the Arctic. Ólafur Ragnar Grimsson, former president of Iceland

Initiator to the Arctic Circle Forums, former Icelandic President Ólafur Ragnar Grimsson, made it clear: “The security of Shanghai in the future will be determined in the Arctic.”

He also placed it the other way around: “The future of the Arctic is determined by those not living in the Arctic, but in big cities like in China.”

China’s CO2 emissions are the largest in the world, ahead of both USA and EU, and are predicted to rise until 2030. Simultaneously, China is also ahead of many other nations in combating greenhouse gas emissions with a strong focus on renewable energy and electric vehicles.

Streets of Shanghai already see a vast majority of electric scooters. Battery cars and busses are normal. In 2018, 1.1 million electric vehicles were sold in China, more than the rest of the world combined.

Every week, 9,500 new electric buses take to the roads in China. That is equivalent to the entire fleet of buses in London.

Polar research

Director of Polar Research Institute of China, Yang Huigen, estimates that some 600 scientists and students are engaged in the Chinese polar research community. 230 are employees at the Polar Research Institute, the rest are with other institutes or universities.

The Polar Research Institute make plans for the work to be conducted at the country’s research bases, two in the Arctic and four in Antarctica. China established its Yellow River Station at Ny-Ålesund on Svalbard in 2003 and last year the China-Iceland Joint Arctic Science Observatory opened near Akureyri in the north of Iceland.

The institute is also responsible for the Arctic and Antarctica expeditions by the research icebreakers “Xue Long” and “Xue Long II”. Both are this year sailing to the waters around Antarctica.

“Xue Long II” was handed over from the shipyard in July and is on her maiden voyage.

Director Yang Huigen makes clear that China’s concerns are not only about rising sea levels. “There is a clear linkage of Arctic sea ice retreat and weather changes in East Asia,” he tells.

“Statistics on Arctic sea ice and mid-latitude weather revealed that in association with Arctic sea ice in summer, East Asia may experience more frequent and intense events of extreme weather in winter.”

Director Yang Huigen in front of the Polar Research Institute of China in Shanghai. (Thomas Nilsen/The Independent Barents Observer)
Belt and Road initiative

Other Arctic coastal nations, like Norway, Canada and the USA, are worried that Beijing positions itself for a future grab of the natural resources on the top of the world.

China’s recently published Arctic policy says non-Arctic states have rights in respect of scientific research, navigation, overflight, fishing, laying of submarine cables and pipelines in the Arctic Ocean, and rights to resource exploration and exploitation in the area, pursuant to treaties and international law.

At the Arctic Circle Forum, Wang Hong made it clear that China respects the sovereignty of Arctic nations, but wants to expand partnership with countries along what Beijing defines as the Polar Silk Road, one of the six silk roads within the Belt and Road initiative linking China with Europe through transport routes, infrastructure development, trading of natural resources and other areas of cooperation.

We will promote cultural and economic exchange, Wang said.

Melting sea ice, though, Captain Shen Quan on “Xue Long” says to the Barents Observer that commercial shipping on the Trans Arctic Route is many years into the future.

He has sailed “Xue Long” five times into the Arctic sea ice.

“The furthest north was at my fourth voyage when we reached 88 degrees 22 minutes, nearly to the North Pole,” he says.

Sea ice varies from year to year, and Shen Quan says that at his fifth expedition they only reached up to 85 degrees north.

The experienced captain does not believe commercial cargo voyages will be able to break the ice across the top of the world anytime soon.

“Commercial shipping across the Arctic will first start when there is no ice at all in the summer periods,” Shen Quan says.

Shen Quan is Captain on Xue Long, China’s largest research icebreaker. (Thomas Nilsen/The Independent Barents Observer)

Beijing’s Arctic Policy says what now happens up north has vital interests for states outside the region.

“The Arctic situation now goes beyond its original inter-Arctic States or regional nature, having a vital bearing on the interests of States outside the region and the interests of the international community as a whole, as well as on the survival, the development, and the shared future for mankind. It is an issue with global implications and international impacts.”

The summer of 2019 was the hottest on record in the Arctic and scientists warn this is just the beginning.

Fingers are crossed for successful results at the UN Climate Summit, which began Monday in New York City.

Meanwhile, city authorities in Shanghai are preparing for the worst.

So far, 520 kilometers of protective seawalls are built across the Hangzhou bay, encircling the cities three islands Changzing, Hensha and Chingming. Also, mechanical gates are installed to regulate overflowing waters from rivers.

Related stories from around the North:

Canada: Climate change education is not just about science, Blog by Ingrid A. Medby

China: China seeks a more active role in the Arctic, The Independent Barents Observer

Finland: After two dry summers, lakes and wells running low in Finland, Yle News

Iceland: Nordic PMs sign climate declaration at Iceland meeting, Eye on the Arctic

Norway: Climate change is about to divide Norway’s largest Arctic island, The Independent Barents Observer

Russia: The Arctic shipping route no one is talking about, Cryopolitics Blog

Sweden: Sweden’s rising fuel prices spark protest rally in Stockholm, Radio Sweden

United States: Drought causing water shortages in Southcentral Alaska communities, Alaska Public Media

Experts look at Arctic policies of region’s key players ahead of Halifax Security Forum

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People attend the float out ceremony of the nuclear-powered icebreaker Ural at the Baltic shipyard in Saint Petersburg on May 25, 2019. (Olga Maltseva/AFP/Getty Images)
The future of the Arctic in an age of global warming will be a major topic at the annual Halifax International Security Forum, which convenes for the eleventh time this weekend in the Nova Scotia capital.

The Canadian event brings together some of the world’s leading geopolitical experts, politicians and military officers to discuss and collaborate on past and future matters related to international security.

In a paper, written to help frame the discussions, Thomas Axworthy, the secretary general of the InterAction Council of Former Heads of State and Government, talks about the Arctic ambitions of three major players involved in the region: Russia, China and Canada.

“In the Arctic, Russia is a superpower”

In his paper, Axworthy emphasizes on Russian President Vladimir Poutin’s interest in the region, in particular, when he endorsed the country’s new National Security Strategy to 2020.

The strategy explicitly aimed to increase the “competitiveness and international prestige of the Russian Federation”.

“The Arctic, President Putin told a meeting of the State Security Council before the strategy was officially released, was a region of ‘concentration of practically all aspects of national security—military, political, economic, technological, environment and that of resources,” writes Axworthy.

He adds that Russia is in the process of concretizing this policy with its plans to add four nuclear icebreakers to its fleet by 2035. The country will end up with a total of 13 heavy icebreakers, including nine nuclear ones. 

Some may quibble about Russia’s great power status vis-à-vis the economy and technology, but in the Arctic, Russia is a superpower and has enjoyed that status since the days of the czars. Thomas Axworthy, secretary general of the InterAction Council of Former Heads of State and Government
Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visit an ice cavern on Alexandra Land Island in the remote Arctic islands of Franz Josef Land on March 29, 2017. (Alexey Druzhinin/AFP/Getty Images)

In an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, Mikaa Mered, Professor of Arctic and Antarctic geopolitics at ILERI in Paris, highlights the difference between Russia and the other major military power in the region, the United States.

“Each one has a significant comparative advantage: the United States is a leader in submarines and stealth action, but Russia has a superior surface projection capability, thanks to its staff trained for cold weather operations and its icebreaker fleet, by far the largest in the world,” says Mered.

He also explained how the U.S. would struggle if they wanted to catch up with Russia as it would take a lot of time and resources to build new icebreakers.

But Mered also adds that Russia’s strategy is to work with other Arctic countries, including the United States, to counter China’s growing presence in the region if it were to become too important.

Russian-American cooperation in the Arctic-Pacific remains good. Their joint message is clear: we control the Bering Strait, China is not welcome.Mikaa Mered, Professor of Arctic and Antarctic geopolitics at ILERI

China’s growth in the Arctic is also acknowledged by the United States. This was explicitly shown by Rebecca Pincus, an assistant professor at the U.S. Naval War College, during a hearing in Washington D.C., on the implications of an emerging Russia-China alliance.

“We need to play a shaping role in this region. It’s our backyard. We have vital national interests at stake,” said Pincus. “If a Chinese submarine surfaces in the Arctic, in the next—it’s probably more like five to 10 years—that’s really going to change the game up there.”

A nuclear-powered Type 094A Jin-class ballistic missile submarine of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy is seen during a military display in the South China Sea April 12, 2018. (Reuters)
China’s ‘Polar Silk Road’

For Axworthy, China’s latest white paper on its Arctic policy clearly shows that the country has become a powerful new player in the region.

“Despite being more than 7,000 kilometres away from the Arctic Circle, the white paper declared China to be “a near-Arctic State” and “an important stakeholder in Arctic affairs.”,” writes the expert.

The white paper clearly outlines “China’s goals in deepening the exploration and understanding of the Arctic, protecting the environment, utilizing Arctic resources, participating actively in Arctic governance, and promoting peace and stability, notably through the Arctic Council, which China joined as an observer in 2013.”

And this policy is now a reality in view of the various scientific explorations undertaken by the country as well as its two new icebreakers.

But the most important in this paper, according to Axworthy, is “the announcement that China would now include Arctic states in its “Belt and Road Initiative,” one of the most significant economic and geopolitical developments in our 21st-century world.”

As part of this plan to radically redevelop the world’s trade and transport routes, China wants to build a “Polar Silk Road” with icebreakers carrying gas between Europe and Asia via Russia’s northern shore.

A “Polar Silk Road” if built, will make China a major Arctic influence for decades to come.Thomas Axworthy
People attend the launch ceremony of China’s first domestically built polar icebreaker Xuelong 2, or Snow Dragon 2, at a shipyard in Shanghai, China September 10, 2018. (Reuters)

According to Mered, this new road is likely to be built in view of the countries involved in this project, which are very interested and active.

He also adds that a 2018 Chinese study showed that the northeast passage was profitable during the three months of summer for a ship of 3500 containers without a reinforced hull from Shanghai to Rotterdam. The boat could do three rotations instead of two and half by the southern route.

“This perspective is therefore seen as very promising and is the starting point of the Chinese project “Polar Silk Road”,” said Mered in its interview with Le Figaro.

‘Canada’s Arctic policy is simply a laundry list of objectives’

Thomas Axworthy then looks at Canada’s Arctic and Northern Policy Framework.

Twenty-five Indigenous organizations, along with the territories of Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and Yukon, and the provinces of Manitoba, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador (territories that are considered as Northern Canada and the Arctic within the Framework), joined in the process of creating the document.

A Canadian flag in Eureka, in Canada’s eastern Arctic territory of Nunavut in 2007. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)

The expert takes a rather critical position on this subject.

“It is certainly a lost opportunity: climate change, melting sea ice, and great power interest in the Arctic should make for a dynamic Arctic policy as an integral part of Canada’s most critical foreign policy priorities,” writes Axworthy. “Instead, Canada’s Arctic policy is simply a laundry list of objectives—which is neither a strategy nor even a policy.”

For him, the problem comes from the multiplicity of authors in this document. The paper “enunciates eight goals and 10 principles, but contains neither an implementation plan nor concrete policy choices.”

Axworthy also refers to Rob Huebert, a Canadian specialist in the Arctic at the University of Calgary.

Huebert says that the federal government has long been aware of the issues of health, sustainable development and sovereignty over the Northwest Passage, but “All that’s been stated before. What’s not being stated here is any idea of how the government is going to address these well-known issues.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau takes part in a signing ceremony with PJ Akeeagok, president of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, and Nunavut Premier Joe Savikataaq following an announcement regarding marine conservation and investments in Inuit communities in Iqaluit, Nunavut. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

The author’s opinion is also shared by Heather Exner-Pirot, a Research Associate at the Observatoire de la politique et la sécurité de l’Arctique (OPSA) in her blog posted on Eye on the Arctic.

“No glossy document, no core; rather, a collection of webpages. A first phase. A handful of partner chapters that “do not necessarily reflect the views of either the federal government, or of the other partners”, with more to be released in due time.”

Axworthy concludes his article by saying that China’s White Paper, in contrast, describes the Arctic dilemma well.

“The first sentence [of China’s white paper] declares that “global warming in recent years has accelerated the melting of ice and snow” and that this poses a great security threat to China and the world.”

To address this global threat, he said, international cooperation is the only way forward, and the Arctic is a critical place to start.

Related stories from around the North:

Canada: Canada, U.S. must do more to check Russian military in the Arctic, says NORAD chief, CBC News

Finland: US missiles: Finnish, Russian presidents call for dialogue at Helsinki meeting, Yle News

Norway: NATO’s Arctic dilemma, Eye on the Arctic special report

Russia: Russia deploys new missile system near Norwegian, Finnish borders, The Independent Barents Observer

Sweden: Swedish soldiers take part in Finnish naval exercise, Radio Sweden

United States: Finnish and US Presidents agree on Arctic security policies, Eye on the Arctic

Canadian navy receives its first new Arctic and offshore patrol ship

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HMCS Harry deWolf heads from the Irving-owned Halifax Shipyard on its way to being delivered to the Royal Canadian Navy dockyard in Halifax on Wednesday, July 31, 2020. The vessel is the first of the new offshore Arctic patrol ships and will conduct surveillance operations, assist in anti-smuggling and anti-piracy operations as well as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press)
The Royal Canadian Navy officially received on Friday its new Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ship (AOPS), HMCS Harry DeWolf, first of a class of six ice-capable warships the military is expected to get to beef up its ability to protect Canada’s northern coastal waters.

Vice-Admiral Art McDonald, Commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, said the delivery of HMCS Harry DeWolf, named in honour of Vice-Admiral Harry DeWolf, a Canadian wartime naval hero, marks the beginning of an “exciting time for the RCN.”

In addition to operating in up to 120 cm of first-year sea ice, these new ice-capable warships will be able to accommodate a submarine-hunting Cyclone helicopter as well as small vehicles, deployable boats, and cargo containers.

Not an armed icebreaker
HMCS Harry deWolf heads from the Irving-owned Halifax Shipyard on its way to being delivered to the Royal Canadian Navy dockyard in Halifax on Wednesday, July 31, 2020. The vessel is the first of the new offshore Arctic patrol ships and will conduct surveillance operations, assist in anti-smuggling and anti-piracy operations as well as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press)

In terms of their offensive and ice capabilities, AOPS are a far cry from an armed icebreaker, but will at the same time have more maneuverability and flexibility, experts say.

“These ships will be at the core of an enhanced Canadian Arctic presence, effectively complementing the capabilities of our other current and future warships through critical reconnaissance and surveillance operations,” McDonald said in a statement.

The Harry DeWolf-class will also be capable of a myriad of different mission sets including humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, McDonald added.

Cost overruns and delays

Then-prime minister Stephen Harper first announced plans to build up to eight armed Arctic patrol vessels in July 2007 and Irving was selected in October 2011 to produce them before building replacements for the navy’s frigates and destroyers.

But the following years saw several cost overruns and delays in the program, which ballooned from $3.1 billion initially budgeted for the project to $4.1 billion for six warships.

Construction of the 103-metre, 6,615-tonne ship began at Halifax Shipyard in September 2015. It was launched on Sept. 15, 2018 and underwent sea trials in 2019.

The future HMCS Harry DeWolf, the navy’s first Arctic and offshore patrol ship, built at the Irving-owned Halifax Shipyard, heads from the harbour in Halifax for sea trials on Friday, Jan. 31, 2020. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press)

HMCS Harry DeWolf will remain docked at Jetty NJ at the Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Halifax Dockyard while the navy conducts its post-acceptance trials and training, including operations near Newfoundland and Labrador, officials said.

Once this post-acceptance work is complete, the ship will undergo a formal commissioning ceremony in the summer of 2021, which will mark that it has officially entered into active naval service, followed by an Arctic deployment, they said.

Construction for the following three ships – HMCS Margaret Brooke, HMCS Max Bernays and HMCS William Hall – continues at Irving’s Halifax Shipyard, with construction of the fifth and sixth ships expected to begin in 2021 and 2022, respectively.

The Canadian Coast Guard will also get two civilian versions of AOPS, at about $400 million a piece.

The federal government is also working to complete the Nanisivik Naval Facility, on northern Baffin Island, in the Arctic territory of Nunavut. The former lead-zinc mine site, converted into a refueling facility for the Canadian navy, will support operations of the new AOPS and other government maritime vessels, officials said.

Initially slated for completion in 2015, this new facility is now expected to be completed in 2022.

Related stories from around the North

Canada: Canada’s long-term neglect of Arctic must stop says Senate report, Eye on the Arctic

Denmark: Pompeo to talk Arctic at upcoming meeting with Danish Foreign Minister, Eye on the Arctic

Finland: Finland joins other Nordic countries in virtual tourism due to pandemic, Yle News

Iceland: Nordics should aim for common approach to China’s Arctic involvement says report, Eye on the Arctic

Norway: Norway strengthens its Arctic military in new defense plan as security concerns grow in the region, The Independent Barents Observer

Russia: Two Chinese rigs prepare for drilling in Russian Arctic waters, The Independent Barents Observer

Sweden: Sweden’s FM calls for more EU involvement in Arctic as country hosts EU Arctic Forum, Radio Sweden

United States: Trump advances new icebreaker plan, Alaska Public Media

COVID-19 blamed as work on Canadian Arctic military port first promised in 2007 sees new delay

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Then-prime minister Stephen Harper looks down the shoreline in the Arctic port of Nanisivik, Nunavut, in August 2007. Harper first announced plans to build the Nanisivik deep-water port, along with up to eight armed Arctic patrol vessels, in 2007. (Fred Chartrand/The Canadian Press)
The construction of a new military refuelling station in the Arctic is facing yet another delay more than 13 years after it was first promised by the federal government.

Stephen Harper, when he was prime minister, first announced plans to build the Nanisivik deep-water port in Nunavut, along with up to eight armed Arctic patrol vessels, in 2007.

The long-standing expectation was that the port, located on Baffin Island about 20 kilometres from Arctic Bay, would be ready when the first of those ships was finally delivered to the Royal Canadian Navy.

Yet while the first Arctic patrol vessel was handed over to the navy on Friday after numerous delays and cost overruns, the Department of National Defence says the Nanisivik facility won’t be ready until 2022.

Defence Department spokesperson Jessica Lamirande blamed travel difficulties associated with the COVID-19 pandemic for the latest delay, which follows numerous environmental and structural problems over the years.

The port was originally supposed to include an airstrip and be staffed year-round, but both plans were dropped after the project’s $116 million budget was found to have more than doubled to $258 million in 2013.

Related stories from around the North

Canada: Canadian navy receives its first new Arctic and offshore patrol ship, Radio Canada International

Denmark: Pompeo to talk Arctic at upcoming meeting with Danish Foreign Minister, Eye on the Arctic

Finland: Finland joins other Nordic countries in virtual tourism due to pandemic, Yle News

Iceland: Nordics should aim for common approach to China’s Arctic involvement says report, Eye on the Arctic

Norway: Norway strengthens its Arctic military in new defense plan as security concerns grow in the region, The Independent Barents Observer

Russia: Two Chinese rigs prepare for drilling in Russian Arctic waters, The Independent Barents Observer

Sweden: Sweden’s FM calls for more EU involvement in Arctic as country hosts EU Arctic Forum, Radio Sweden

United States: Trump advances new icebreaker plan, Alaska Public Media


Allies testing naval readiness in Canada’s Arctic

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A Navy Seaking helicopter flies past the Coast Guard icebreaker Pierre Radisson is seen at sea in Frobisher Bay during Operation Nanook Wednesday Aug 19, 2009. (Adrian Wyld/TCPI/The Canadian Press)
Operation Nanook, the Canadian military’s annual northern sovereignty exercise, is taking on a distinct NATO look this year with the participation of three other allies, one of which is not an Arctic nation.

Five warships, a replenishment vessel and U.S. coast guard cutter are slated to take part in the three-week drill, which senior American and Canadian commanders said Monday was designed to test not only their ability to operate together in the harsh environment but also their “basic war-fighting” skills.

Canada is sending the frigate HMCS Ville de Quebec, the coastal defence vessel HMCS Glace Bay and the supply ship MV Asterix.

Joining them will be Danish frigate HDMS Triton, the French coastal defence ship FS Fulmar, the U.S. coast guard cutter Tahoma and the brand-new American guided missile destroyer USS Thomas Hudner.

Canada, Denmark and the U.S. are all Arctic nations, but France is not.

The annual exercise, which began in 2007, has had international participation in the past, but the training that got underway Monday is broader and very tightly focused to include gunnery and ship-tracking scenarios.

The Canadian coast guard ship Pierre Radisson, front, and HMCS Toronto take part in Operation Nanook in 2008. This year’s exercise includes the U.S., Denmark and France. (Murray Brewster/CBC)

From a geopolitical perspective, the Arctic is becoming an area of increasing interest to rivals such as Russia, which has invested heavily in rebuilding its cold weather military capability, and China, a nation that has no border in the region but has embarked on an icebreaker-building binge.

American Vice-Admiral Andrew Lewis, who commands both the U.S. Second Fleet and the allies’ joint forces command in Norfolk, Va., said “this is absolutely not a NATO exercise. It’s a Canadian exercise and a Canadian-led operation.”

Having said that, NATO is interested in seeing allies gain experience operating together in the ice-choked passages and barren landscapes.

The Western military alliance has been paying increasing attention and even delivered a policy assessment on the changing shape of security in the region, all of which have drawn sharp rebukes from Russia.

The multinational exercise sends an important signal, said Vice-Admiral Steven Poulin, the U.S. coast guard’s Atlantic-area commander.

“The message is that the Arctic is strategically important. It’s becoming increasingly important for our collective national security,” Poulin told a media teleconference on Monday. “Presence [in the region] matters and I think the participation reflects that presence matters.”

Rear Admiral Brian Santarpia, the commander of Canada’s East Coast fleet, said the region is so vast and harsh that allies need each other to operate safely and effectively, and that the exercise will test how well they can do that.

The example he gave, compared to some of the planned training, was benign and involved a search-and-rescue scenario involving a stricken cruise ship, an illustration the Canadian military has frequently invoked to describe the kinds of missions that might take place.

The Coast Guard ship Pierre Radisson sails off the coast of Churchill, Man. as it takes part in Operation Nanook Friday, August 24, 2012. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

In comparison to previous years, Operation Nanook is being scaled back and there are restrictions, such as a ban on port visits, because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Santarpia said every effort is being made to ensure that the isolation from COVID-19 that the people of the North have largely enjoyed will be maintained.

Demonstrating to potential adversaries that the virus has not hindered the ability of the U.S. and other nations to deploy forces in harsh conditions is an underlying message, Lewis suggested.

“We have a lot of missions out there,” he said. “It’s a COVID-environment for sure, but it’s also hurricane season … We continue to march through that.”

Related stories from around the North

Canada: COVID-19 blamed as work on Canadian Arctic military port first promised in 2007 sees new delay, The Canadian Press

Denmark: Pompeo to talk Arctic at upcoming meeting with Danish Foreign Minister, Eye on the Arctic

Iceland: Nordics should aim for common approach to China’s Arctic involvement says report, Eye on the Arctic

Norway: Norway strengthens its Arctic military in new defense plan as security concerns grow in the region, The Independent Barents Observer

Russia: Two Chinese rigs prepare for drilling in Russian Arctic waters, The Independent Barents Observer

Sweden: Sweden’s FM calls for more EU involvement in Arctic as country hosts EU Arctic Forum, Radio Sweden

United States: Trump advances new icebreaker plan, Alaska Public Media

Finland and Russia discuss cooperation between Arctic and Barents structures

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Finland’s Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto arrives at a European Union foreign ministers emergency meeting to discuss ways to try to save the Iran nuclear deal, in Brussels, Belgium, January 10, 2020. The Finnish Foreign Minister had a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on August 12. (Johanna Geron/Reuters)
While Russia takes over the Chair of the Arctic Council next year, Finland will have the responsibility of the Barents Euro-Arctic Council in the same two-year period, 2021-2023.

On the initiative of the Finnish Foreign Ministry, the phone conversation took place between Sergey Lavrov and Pekka Haavisto on August 12.

The ministers agreed on close cooperation as the two countries will be in charge of the two multilateral formats of northern cooperation, the Arctic and the European Barents Region.

“In responding to the COVID-19 crisis, regional and cross-border cooperation, such as the Northern Dimension policy and the Barents Euro-Arctic Council with its working groups focusing on health, offer excellent tools. We also took note of the opportunities for cooperation during the coinciding Russian chairmanship of the Arctic Council and the Finnish chairmanship of the Barents Regional Council,” Foreign Minister Haavisto said. He underlined the importance of a low-carbon future.

“Combining the economy and the environment towards low-carbon choices is also an opportunity in the development of the Arctic regions.”Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto

Arms control, Ukraine and Russia-EU relations were also on the agenda, according to a press release from the Finnish Foreign Ministry. Haavisto emphasized the importance of the Open Skies Agreement and called on Russia to remain in the agreement.

The Russian Foreign Ministry’s press release highlighted the good Russian-Finnish neighboring relations, but emphasized the security challenges in the area as Sergey Lavrov pointed to the “destructive nature of NATO’s activities in the Baltic Sea region.”

Related stories from around the North

Canada: Canada’s long-term neglect of Arctic must stop, says Senate report, Eye on the Arctic

Denmark: Denmark, U.S. affirm need to ‘maintain and build situational awareness’ in the Arctic, Eye on the Arctic

Finland: Finland joins other Nordic countries in virtual tourism due to pandemic, Yle News

Iceland: Nordics should aim for common approach to China’s Arctic involvement says report, Eye on the Arctic

Norway: Norway strengthens its Arctic military in new defense plan as security concerns grow in the region, The Independent Barents Observer

Russia: Two Chinese rigs prepare for drilling in Russian Arctic waters, The Independent Barents Observer

Sweden: Sweden’s FM calls for more EU involvement in Arctic as country hosts EU Arctic Forum, Radio Sweden

United States: U.S. wants to keep the Arctic an area of low tensions, top official, Radio Canada International

Blog – A Chinese sailboat is circumnavigating the Arctic

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Chinese artist-sailor Zhai Mo has just set sail from Shanghai to embark on a four-month journey around the Arctic Ocean. (Mia Bennett)

Chinese artist-sailor Zhai Mo (翟墨) has just set sail from Shanghai to embark on a four-month journey around the Arctic Ocean. The voyage promoter’s claim that it will be the first non-stop circumpolar navigation.

Eleven years ago, however, Norwegian explorer Børge Ousland sailed around the edge of the Arctic Ocean on his trimaran sailboat within a single summer season. That summer, so, too did Russian sailor Daniel Gavrilov. These two expeditions were the first successful circumnavigations of the North Pole by sailboat, though it does appear that they may have stopped, for the two expeditions encountered each other in the port of Pevek, Russia. (Numerous other sailors have since completed the circumnavigation, including a 73-year old British pensioner in 2011 and, separately, a 14-year old British teenager in 2016. The first tourist vessel circumnavigated the Arctic in 1999.)

A clip from Daniel Gavrilov’s circumnavigation of the North Pole by sailboat in 2010.

Zhai’s trip may well be the first non-stop one. It will also undoubtedly be the first circumnavigation of the North Pole by a Chinese sailor, making it a point of national pride that is cloaked in universalizing rhetoric. His voyage has been touted by Huang Ming, CEO of a Chinese company providing solar energy to provide electricity to the vessels, as “not only a challenging adventure that surpasses the limits of mankind, but also a nautical public welfare trip that calls on people to protect the Arctic natural environment and maintain the marine ecology” [sic]. Seen this way, Zhai’s circumnavigation seems like a standard-issue modern Arctic expedition in which environmentalism, big egos, and big money all intertwine.

Zhai Mo’s planned circumnavigation of the Arctic Ocean.

Yet Zhai’s voyage is also distinct in that despite being a private expedition, it enjoys the close support of the Chinese state and associated entities. (In contrast, Ousland’s 2010 circumnavigation was sponsored by Google and the Discovery Channel.) Departing on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, the landmark voyage is being fêted by state media outlets and Chinese bloggers alike. Huang’s post perfunctorily observed, “This is another feat of the Chinese National People’s Congress.” Zhai’s expedition also has the sponsorship of state-owned enterprises like ChinaMobile, whose fittingly icy blue and white logo adorns the vessel’s sail when it is not flying its crimson red one, and China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), which has carried out numerous test voyages along the Northern Sea Route.

Map of the first circumnavigation of the Arctic Ocean by a tourist vessel in 1999. (Headland and Splettstoesser, 1999)

Zhai’s previous voyages, among them circumnavigating the planet in 2011-2012 and sailing along a route manifesting China’s plans for a “Maritime Silk Road” as part of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2015, expressed clear geopolitical undertones. The 2011-2012 global circumnavigation, which involved five other sixty-foot sailboats, stopped in dozens of locations, including at China’s Great Wall Station in Antarctica.

The second Maritime Silk Road voyage was even more brazenly political, retracing the voyages taken by Ming Dynasty navigator Zheng He, who set out several times in the early 1400s from Fujian Province aboard shachuan (sandboats that had flat-bottomed hulls to facilitate sailing in shallow coastal waters) to destinations around the Indian Ocean. In 2015, Zhai sailed 10,000 nautical miles from Fujian to Italy via Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Seychelles, Egypt, Greece, and Malta. Around the pirate-infested waters of the Gulf of Aden, the Chinese navy (or, one report claims, a private Chinese security firm called HuaxinZhongan Security Service) escorted his ship.

Emphasizing the intertwining of exploration, geopolitics, and culture, Zhai and his team consisting of two other yachts mimicked Zheng He’s trips by keeping on board ancient and modern Chinese ceramics, paintings, and tea, which they used to help spread and promote Chinese culture at museums in the port cities where they docked. Further demonstrating his patriotism, Zhai expressed, “It’s exciting to have our five-star national flag flying over the yacht in the foreign seas. We want to spread our passion toward sailing and unswerving spirit, and share the beautiful moment with other people.”

Keeping the Chinese flag flying high, however, was not enough. During their expedition, when Zhai’s crew passed near the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, whose sovereignty China and Japan dispute, with the Chinese Coast Guard supporting them, they dumped 100 Chinese flags into the water. Many were attached to buoys, allowing them to float. Zhai told The Global Times, “Even though we were just a few people on a sailboat, we voiced our opinions to the people of Japan and other countries…We got there and we claimed our sovereignty, which is the most important thing.”

Geopolitical pollution in the form of flag-dumping is unnecessary anywhere. Yet if Mo were to repeat such a stunt in the Arctic, this could be particularly problematic, as the ocean’s cold temperatures mean that waste takes much longer to break down.

Børge Ousland’s circumnavigation of the Arctic Ocean. (International Polar Foundation)
Zhai Mo’s polar circumnavigation: A private or state endeavor?

Zhai’s circumnavigation raises a key question: Is he making the trip of his own volition or instead due to a decision taken by higher-ups in the Chinese government?

The answer is that Zhai’s voyage lies somewhere in between being a private and state-funded feat. The line between the two has been blurred throughout the history of Arctic exploration, and exploration in general for that matter. The planting of the Russian flag on the seabed below the North Pole in 2008, which attracted a huge degree of controversy, was in fact carried out by a privately-funded expedition. When Zhai was recollecting scattering flags around the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, he expressed, “It was rather more of a free and personal voyage,” he said. “A Chinese man who sails for sport can’t make that much trouble. This approach to maintaining sovereignty is a lot more peaceful.” More peaceful, perhaps, than having a Chinese icebreaker suddenly drop flags in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, but no less geopolitical.

In that regard, another question to ask might be whether Zhai’s historic voyage should in fact be seen as a compliment to the first Arctic expedition by China’s new icebreaker, Xue Long 2, which will set sail on July 12 from Shanghai to cross the Arctic ice cap. Notably, someone on board Xue Long 2, currently docked in Shanghai, wrote on their Weibo microblog that they tried to call one of the ships in Zhai’s mini-circumnavigation fleet as it exited the port, but no one answered. “See you at the North Pole” they signed off. (You can follow the micro-blog, complete with photos of pastel-colored sunsets from the icebreaker’s bow and delicious dumplings, here. Things should get more interesting once the icebreaker sets sail in mid-July.)

The geopolitical conditions for circumnavigation

Even if geopolitical tensions are rising both within the Arctic and between China and the West, the very possibility of circumnavigating the Arctic Ocean testifies to vastly improved regional relations since the Cold War. In 1980, Sweden proposed to send its icebreaker, Ymer, to carry out what would have been the first circumnavigation of the Arctic Ocean. The voyage would have also commemorated the first circumnavigation in 1897 of Europe and Asia by Swedish explorer Adolf Erik Nordensköld. The Soviets, however, blocked the voyage due to security concerns over the Northeast Passage. (Indeed, these were much the same sensitivities that drove the Soviets to block international flights from passing through Soviet airspace until 1985, which is why flights between North America and Asia had to go through Alaska or the Middle East.)

A brief report in Nature from 1980 explains of the Swedes’ efforts: “Permission was asked of the Russian authorities to sail along the Siberian coast and to take sediment cores from the continental shelf there. Although the Swedish Prime Minister Falldin took up the matter with Mr Kosygin [then Premier of the USSR], the Russians never replied. Reconciling themselves to Russian views about the strategic importance of the area, the Swedes changed their route.” They ended up sticking much closer to Svalbard, and consequently could not gather as much scientific data as they had hoped.

Now, a Chinese sailor is about to circumnavigate the Arctic Ocean in a sailboat, and the Russians do not seem to be the least bit perturbed. Not only, then, are melting sea ice and a rising China responsible for what may well be the first non-stop circumnavigation of the Arctic by sailboat: so, too, is the happy fact that the Arctic Ocean is a much more cooperative and open space than it was four decades ago. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Related stories from around the North:

Canada: Arctic nickel, not oil, could soon power the world’s cars, Blog by Mia Bennett, Cryopolitics

China: It’s official: China releases its first Arctic Policy, Blog by Mia Bennett, Crypolitics

Finland: An optimistic picture for Finland’s economy in 2018, The Independent Barents Observer

Norway:  An international collaboration behind Russia’s second Arctic LNG project, The Independent Barents Observer

Russia: Arctic seaports bustle as shipping on Russia’s Northern Sea Route reaches new high, The Independent Barents Observer

Sweden:  Swedish minister Margot Wallström takes on the lead in Barents, Radio Sweden

United States: Big questions emerge over $43 billion gas-export deal between Alaska and China, Alaska Dispatch News

NORAD alerts public of routine training operation in Arctic as Russia continues invasion of Ukraine

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NORAD announced there will be training operation in the Arctic that will lead to increased military personnel in Whitehorse and Yellowknife from March 14-17. (NORAD/ Twitter)

As tensions rise between NATO and Russia, North America’s air defence is notifying the public about a training operation that will lead to increased military personnel in Whitehorse and Yellowknife.

North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) announced that from March 14 to 17 it would be completing an Arctic air defence operation called Noble Defender. This will involve about 350 military personnel, 250 of which will be Canadians and the remaining 100 who are American.

Maj.-Gen Eric Kenny is the commander of 1 Canadian Air Division and commander of the Canadian NORAD region.

“What we’re looking to do is confirm our ability to respond to threat aircraft as well as cruise missile type threats that would come within the Canada NORAD region,” he said.

“So NORAD is very focused, as it should be, on the air defence of North America.”

A press release said the majority of the operation’s flights will be conducted over sparsely populated Arctic areas at high altitudes where the public is not likely to see or hear aircraft.

However, the release said there will be an increase in military presence and flying activity in Whitehorse, Yellowknife and 5 Wing Goose Bay in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Planned before the invasion of Ukraine

Kenny said the operation was planned before Russia invaded Ukraine in late February.

“We’re monitoring very closely, of course, what’s going on within Europe,” Kenny said.

“So although, you know, there could be linkages made to what’s going on within Europe, it was not planned that way. And I think it showcases the need and the relevance of what we do within NORAD.”

Kenny said the operation is not out of the ordinary, as NORAD regularly runs training missions like this in the Arctic. March was chosen because the weather can be particularly challenging, which serves as a good training opportunity, he said.

“In the past couple of years, we have worked up to make sure that we can operate, somewhat seamlessly, throughout the Arctic region, which is of course so important in today’s context of global security,” Kenny said.

Sending a message

Kenny said the public service announcement, which NORAD issued on Feb. 15, was sent out early “recognizing the context of what’s going on, on the world stage.”

He said it wasn’t designed as a message to Russia, but added NORAD does “recognize that we do have adversaries that threaten global security.”

“There is always an important context to why we have a military,” he said.

Rob Huebert is an associate professor of political science at the University of Calgary.

He said the NORAD operation is nothing new, but the messaging is.

“The fact it’s being publicized, the fact that NORAD is going out of its way to make sure that you have an awareness of it, that that is being shared is obviously part of the signaling that we are giving to the Russians right now to show that we continue to be prepared for any possibilities,” he said.

A photo of a NATO operation in Alaska. NORAD and NATO have been completing various training operations in the Arctic as Russia’s war with Ukraine continues. (Photo: NATO/ Twitter)

Huebert said another aspect of this that is unique is that other Arctic operations by allied countries — including the U.S., U.K. and Norway — are happening around the same time.

“The fact that they’re all occurring at the same time probably has a little bit to do with the Ukrainian crisis once again, to send a message to the Russians that this is a capability we have,” he said.

Huebert said he doesn’t believe there is a risk of a Russian land invasion into North America through the Arctic.

He said the risk comes from airspace and underwater capabilities, but the response of showing Russia that North America and Europe can respond to those threats, can deter escalation.

Interviews by Juanita Taylor

Related stories from around the North: 

Canada: Russia’s assault on Ukraine: MLA in Canada’s Northwest Territories asks for assurances about Arctic security, CBC News

Finland: Finland’s NATO membership decision needs more time, says PM, Yle News

Norway: Nordic countries halt all regional cooperation with Russia, The Independent Barents Observer

Russia: Russia’s Arctic LNG project might come to halt, The Independent Barents Observer

Sweden: Finland and Sweden to “strengthen interaction with NATO”, Radio Sweden 

Canada looks to reinforce Arctic sovereignty through diplomacy, military, says minister

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Clearance Divers from Fleet Diving Unit Pacific and port inspection divers from the Royal Canadian Navy conduct mine countermeasure missions on the ocean floor in the area of Juneau, Alaska, during Exercise Arctic Edge 2022 on March 8. (Master Sailor Dan Bard/Canadian Armed Forces)

National Defence Minister Anita Anand is planning a trip to the Arctic, as she gathers her allied counterparts in Arctic countries for a joint discussion on the security of the region in light of Russian aggression in Ukraine.

Anand told CBC News she spoke to all three territorial premiers on Friday about her intention to visit. The minister said she is also having ongoing discussions with the defence ministers of Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark.

“What is so important is the collective will to act together as allies regarding Arctic sovereignty and I will be gathering all of these ministers together for a joint discussion,” Anand said.

Anand said she will soon introduce a spending plan for modernizing the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD), a bilateral organization between the U.S. and Canada created to defend the continent from air attack.

“It is extremely important for NORAD modernization that we have these continued discussions,” she said.

A Royal Canadian Navy diver performs mine countermeasure operations as part of Exercise Arctic Edge 2022 near Juneau, Alaska, on March 8. (Cpl Hugo Montpetit/Canadian Armed Forces)

Ottawa has committed to work with the U.S. on replacing the North Warning System with technology that includes next-generation over-the-horizon radar systems that can detect targets at long ranges.

Anand also said Ottawa is buying new military equipment, including two new polar ice breakers, and is expected to award a contract for 88 new fighter jets this year.

Military exercises to have ‘deterrent and defensive effect’

Canada began an Arctic air defence operation Monday, known as Noble Defender, with the U.S. that will run until March 17 and include flying over sparsely populated areas at high altitudes.

“This exercise will have a deterrent and defensive effect,” Anand said.

“We are very much aware and prepared to undertake additional exercises as necessary.”

HMCS Brandon sits just outside Juneau, Alaska, as the ship supports divers from Fleet Diving Unit Pacific while they conduct mine countermeasure missions on the ocean floor during Exercise Arctic Edge 2022 on March 8. (Master Sailor Dan Bard/Canadian Armed Forces)

The Canadian Armed Forces on HMCS Brandon are additionally training in mine warfare with the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard as part of exercise Arctic Edge off the coast of Juneau, Alaska.

The exercise involves military personnel using remote underwater vehicles to practice finding and removing mines from the sea bed.

“The theme of the exercise really is building relationships with other security partners in the Arctic,” said Lt.-Cmdr. Mike Wills, the commanding officer of HMCS Brandon.

“The conflict in Ukraine didn’t result in the scheduling of this exercise, but certainly it perhaps highlights the importance.”

Time for Canada to step up, critics say

Russia has been flexing its military presence in the Arctic like never before using nuclear submarines and nuclear-powered icebreakers, even laying claims to a bigger chunk of a region within 200 nautical miles from Canada’s coastline.

“Canadians’ safety is at risk if we do not step up to the plate and adequately defend,” said Conservative MP Bob Zimmer, critic for northern affairs and Arctic sovereignty. “We need leadership.”

Zimmer said Canada’s response to Russia’s military buildup is overdue and he doesn’t think Canada is ready for an offensive encounter in the Arctic.

Meanwhile, the NDP’s national defence critic, Lindsay Mathyssen, is calling on Ottawa to spend more on northern communities.

“This is about investing in the infrastructure they’ve ignored for quite some time,” she said.

WATCH | Canada aims to reinforce Arctic sovereignty:

There are growing calls for Canada to increase security measures across the far North to protect Arctic sovereignty in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Defence Minister Anita Anand says she’s exploring diplomatic channels to discuss the security of the region, along with a plan to modernize the North American Aerospace Defence Command. 2:03

Yukon Premier Sandy Silver said funding for highways, airports, digital security and energy is now more important than ever.

“We need peace and stability right across the north,” Silver said.

“Foreign countries are paying a lot of attention to the north and it’s time that Canada does the same.”

Silver said he’s been concerned about Arctic sovereignty for years, and intends to raise the issue at the Council of the Federation meetings this summer with the prime minister and premiers.

Call to demilitarize region

The Arctic Council, a high-level intergovernmental forum that addresses issues faced by Arctic governments and Indigenous Peoples, put its work on hold due to the invasion of Ukraine. Russia is the current chair.

“It’s worrisome,” said Dalee Sambo Dorough, the international chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) — one of the six Indigenous organizations, known as Permanent Participants, on the Arctic Council.

“It’s my hope that it doesn’t escalate or go even further.”

The ICC, which emerged from the Cold War to strengthen unity among Inuit, has long called for the Arctic to be declared a zone of peace — something Dorough expects members to reaffirm to a “much higher level of priority” due to the conflict in Ukraine at its July 2022 general assembly.

Cpl. Nicolaus Lalopoulos, a door gunner with 408 Tactical Helicopter Squadron, mans a Browning M2 .50 calibre heavy machine gun on a CH-146 Griffon training flight during Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center 22-02 at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, on March 8. (Cpl. Angela Gore/Canadian Armed Forces)

It’s conceivable that war between Russia and NATO would extend to the North American Arctic, but it’s more likely to extend to the European Arctic near Norway, the Barents Sea and North Sea, according to Michael Byers, Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia.

He said Canada needs more surveillance in the region, but not because the country should be worried about a possible Russian attack.

“We’re protected by distance and climate from Russia today,” Byers said.

“Our involvement in this is through NATO and the theatre is in Europe, it’s not in the Canadian Arctic.”

Related stories from around the North: 

Canada: NORAD alerts public of routine training operation in Arctic as Russia continues invasion of Ukraine, CBC News

Finland: Finland’s NATO membership decision needs more time, says PM, Yle News

Norway: Nordic countries halt all regional cooperation with Russia, The Independent Barents Observer

Russia: Blog: Blowback – The Ukraine Conflict and Arctic Security, Marc Lanteigne

Sweden: Finland and Sweden to “strengthen interaction with NATO”, Radio Sweden 

United States: U.S. Army unveils Arctic strategy as relations with Russia plunge into deep freeze, Radio Canada International

Russian invasion of Ukraine puts ‘more attention onto the needs of the Arctic’

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Larry Audlaluk in a photo from 2019. The elder and historian was moved forcibly to Grise Fiord, Nunavut, in 1953 at age two in the name of Arctic sovereignty and says Canada should do more to exert its influence in the area, particularly by investing in its residents. (High Arctic Haulers/CBC)

A man whose life was upended in the name of Arctic sovereignty says Canada now needs to do more to keep his and other remote Arctic communities safe.

Larry Audlaluk is an elder and historian who lives in Canada’s northernmost community, Grise Fiord, Nunavut. He was moved there forcibly in 1953 at age two from northern Quebec, when the federal government decided to plant a group of Inuit in the High Arctic as a way to exert sovereignty.

Audlaluk still lives there with his family and says watching Russia — an Arctic neighbour with ambition — invade Ukraine has been “unnerving.”

“We’re not too far from the North Pole,” he told CBC Nunavut’s Qulliq morning radio show. “Within Canada, I felt rather close to the other side.”

The community of about 130 people lies just 1,500 kilometres from the North Pole, and roughly 3,400 kilometres from Ottawa.

“I felt I’m too close for comfort really.”

Two small groups of Inuit were deposited in Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay in the 1950s. They remain Canada’s two northernmost communities, lying closer to the North Pole than Ottawa. (CBC)

Audlaluk is not the only northern leader keeping a close eye on the situation as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its second month.

N.W.T. Premier Caroline Cochrane said Russia’s aggressive actions should serve as a wake-up call to shore up safety and resiliency in the North.

“Now with Russia invading Ukraine, it does show that we are vulnerable,” she said. “We need to make sure that we have the structures, the infrastructure in place, the services in place so that our people can not only thrive but that we can maintain Arctic sovereignty.”

‘They’ve always had ambitions in the Arctic’

Clarence Wood is the mayor of Inuvik, a town located about 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle in the N.W.T.

He says he’s not worried for the safety of people living in Inuvik right now, but he also thinks locals would be “foolish not to be worried” about Arctic sovereignty, in light of current events.

“Russia has ambitions,” he said. “They’ve always had ambitions in the Arctic, and with the expansion of their military to their Arctic regions, it puts us even closer. So, yeah, I’d say we have concerns. We have a very limited military presence. I don’t think it would take the Russians very long to go through here if they put their mind to it.”

He says there used to be a “fairly big military presence in the area” until the 1980s, when the Canadian Navy moved most of its personnel away.

Now, military planes do some exercises at the airport, but to a much lesser extent.

But Wood would like to see the Canadian military increase its presence in Inuvik again, especially while Russia is on the offensive.

“It could be a serious situation very fast,” he said. “Personally, I don’t think we’re ready for it.”

Arctic Canada rich in natural resources

Other northern N.W.T. communities are thinking through similar issues.

Erwin Elias is the mayor of Tuktoyaktuk, a hamlet on the shore of the Arctic Ocean and “just over 2,000 kilometres … to Russia.”

Erwin Elias, mayor of Tuktoyaktuk, says that while he isn’t worried about a direct threat to Tuktoyaktuk right now, he is mindful of the wealth of natural resources in the area and what that might mean for the future. (Mackenzie Scott/CBC )

Elias also isn’t worried about a direct threat to Tuktoyaktuk right now, but is mindful of the wealth of natural resources in the area and what that might mean for the future.

“I wouldn’t say there’s a concern right now, but there is potential because of the oil and gas that surrounds us in the Arctic here,” he said.

So Elias says “of course” this would be a good moment for the federal government to support far northern communities like his.

“Maybe this is the time for the government to come up here and look at investing in the North again,” he said.

More than military might, says premier

Cochrane and the other territorial premiers have been in discussion with the prime minister and other members of the federal government to discuss their urgent concerns.

And while Cochrane says Russia’s invasion has put “more attention onto the needs of the Arctic,” she adds that sovereignty means more than building up a military presence and defence structures in the territory. It also means building roads and ports, as well as better medical and telecommunications infrastructure.

“A lot of the things that we need in the North are things that people in the South take for granted,” she said. “We’re not asking for things that are unusual. We’re asking to be at the same standard of people in the South.”

Audaluk agrees.

A formal apology was issued to the High Arctic Exiles in 2010.

“We have been given the recognition,” Audlaluk said. “But now what’s lacking is a lot of infrastructure needs.”

For example, he’d like to see better aircraft service. Right now, the community of about 130 people is accessible only by charter flight to nearby Resolute Bay, the other High Arctic Exile community. A round-trip flight from Grise Fiord to Ottawa costs $4,500.

“I know it’s a lot of politics involved,” Audlaluk said, “but still we’re still … in my opinion, the centre of attention when it comes to the North Pole region.”

With files from Salome Awa, Meagan Deuling and Valérie Gamache

Related stories from around the North: 

Canada: Canada looks to reinforce Arctic sovereignty through diplomacy, military, says minister, CBC News

Finland: Finland’s NATO membership decision needs more time, says PM, Yle News

Norway: Nordic countries halt all regional cooperation with Russia, The Independent Barents Observer

Russia: A wave of war propaganda is gushing over Russian youth, The Independent Barents Observer

Sweden: Finland and Sweden to “strengthen interaction with NATO”, Radio Sweden 

United States: U.S. Army unveils Arctic strategy as relations with Russia plunge into deep freeze, Radio Canada International

Blog: ‘Nor night nor day no rest’ – Arctic diplomacy divided (and united)

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The main stage at the May 2022 Arctic Frontiers Conference, Tromsø (Photo by Marc Lanteigne)

As the conflict in Ukraine continues, its political, economic and strategic effects have flowed outwards to adjacent regions and beyond. In the Arctic, many previous assumptions about regional politics and security are now being openly challenged, and in some cases completely cast aside.

With the Vladimir Putin regime facing ever-wider sanctions amid growing international isolation, almost all Arctic cooperation, including the far north’s cornerstone organisation, the Arctic Council, which would involve Moscow has been suspended.

No end point to the Ukrainian conflict is in sight, but at the same time the Arctic is facing serious questions about how its governments and its citizens can move forward in addressing its pressing regional challenges, chief amongst them being climate change. During the same week the invasion began, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest report which featured (pdf) renewed warnings that the Polar Regions were experiencing accelerated ice erosion which would create tipping points in ecosystems at both poles.

Arctic cooperation may have been ‘paused’, but a common theme frequently cited during the recently concluded Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromsø was that the Arctic itself has no pause button. Environmental threats will persist in the region, regardless of who is and is not talking to whom. This year’s conference, postponed from January due to the omicron, was conducted in a hybrid format, and with a concentration on the various local impacts of climate change as well as ongoing challenges of sustainable development.

However, the Ukraine conflict was never far from any conversation at the conference, and panels included a discussion of how Arctic cooperation could go forward in the near term without Russian participation. It was stressed, including by panellist James DeHart, the Arctic Regional Coordinator for the US government, that there would be no initiative to replace the Arctic Council and that the organisation needed to eventually return to its original format.

As well, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was the subject of a specialised panel examining the effects of the war on the Arctic Council and overall regional governance. Among the sensitive topics addressed were how the chair position could be successfully passed from Russia to Norway, which is scheduled to take place in May 2023, and whether there would be changing patterns of Arctic cooperation sparked by the conflict and international responses.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt speaks at the Arctic Frontiers Conference, May 2022 (Photo: David Jensen / Arctic Frontiers)

During her speech at the Arctic Frontiers opening sessions, Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt confirmed that plans remained underway for Oslo to accept the chair position of the Council next year, and that issue-specific cooperation with Russian authorities would continue in the areas of border control, nuclear safety, search and rescue, and sustainable resource management. However, wider scientific and policy cooperation would not be possible under current conditions.

In Russia, the Putin government has reworked its own Arctic Council policy activities to reflect domestic concerns, while insisting (in Russian) that it would continue to assume its responsibilities as chair despite all meetings between Moscow and the other seven member governments being postponed indefinitely.

Amongst the looming questions over how the Ukraine conflict will affect the Arctic Council moving forward are whether there will be endeavours by the Western members of the organisation to continue cooperation in vital policy areas without Russia, and whether (and how) some sort of backchannel to Russian authorities could be created in order to maintain a minimal line of communication. There is also the complex issue of where the Council’s hiatus leaves the Permanent Participants, which represent Indigenous interests across the entire region, as well as the formal observers which include thirteen non-Arctic governments in Asia and Europe, many of which have also begun to expand their policies in the far north.

The problems of balancing global actions to condemn Russia’s unlawful attack on Ukraine with the need to maintain efforts to combat climate change in the far north were well illustrated in a speech adjacent to the Arctic Frontiers event, by Virginijus Sinkevičus, European Union Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries.

In his presentation at UiT – The Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø, he outlined the current and emerging human security threats facing the Arctic, including climate change effects, health in the emerging post-pandemic world, education, interests of Indigenous peoples, and regional development challenges. ‘There is no vaccine for climate change and biodiversity degradation’, he added.

Virginijus Sinkevičius, EU Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, speaking at the Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, May 2022 (Photo: Marc Lanteigne)

Mr Sinkevičus also commented on the roles which the European Union could play in addressing these concerns, (‘The EU is in the Arctic, and the Arctic is in the EU’), including green and blue development plans such as the recent call for Arctic fossil fuels to remain in the ground, as well as the European Green Deal and the ‘Fit for 55’ policy, with its goal of the Union achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and chopping greenhouse gas emissions by fifty-five percent in the next eight years.

The EU’s green policies now face stronger headwinds in light of rising oil prices and attempts by numerous governments, including in the EU, to halt future purchases of Russian oil and gas, while other Arctic oil producing states like Norway are facing pressures to increase their quotas, (although Norway is also facing possible strike action by eight thousand oil workers over wages).

The security map of the Arctic is also about to change as Finland and Sweden, two Arctic states which had traditionally maintained neutral security stances, (although both governments had joined the EU in 1995), confirmed their intention to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), and formally submitted their membership applications on 18 May.

Should both countries enter the alliance, this would mean all seven Arctic Council members from western governments would be members, and the length of the borders separating NATO from Russia would more than double. Finland has an approximately 1340km-long frontier with the Russian Federation, stretching well north of the Arctic Circle.

Finnish and Swedish armed forces have long cooperated with their NATO colleagues, including in the most recent Cold Response military manoeuvres in Norway, including in the Norwegian north, which took place in March and April of this year, but another crucial question will be how overall military dynamics in the Arctic will change as a result of the two new applications.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg receives official letters of application to join NATO from Klaus Korhonen (Ambassador of Finland accredited to NATO) and Axel Wernhoff (Ambassador of Sweden accredited to NATO), 17 May 2022 (Photo via the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation)

The Russian government at first forcefully condemned the applications, although President Putin would later speak in a softer tone on the subject. However, in addition to economic aftershocks such as the suspension of Russian gas supplies to Finland last month, Moscow also strongly hinted that its approach to Arctic cooperation would need to be ‘adjusted’ in consideration of the potential NATO membership status of Finland and Sweden. This included comments by Nikolai Korchunov, Russia’s Senior Arctic Official, that there would need to be an assessment of whether trust between the country and the other Arctic governments would be adversely affected by NATO’s most recent expansion.

In contrast, a joint statement by Denmark, Iceland and Norway endorsed the applications, and both Canada and the United States also affirmed their support for swift admission to the alliance for both Nordic states.

However, the actual timetable for admission to the alliance is now clouded, mainly because of emerging opposition by the Recep Tayyip Erdoğan government of NATO member Turkey. President Erdoğan had previously accused the Finnish and Swedish governments of being sympathetic to the opposition Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, or PKK), which the Turkish leader views as a terrorist organisation, and has also called for both Nordic states to remove an arms embargo on Ankara in the wake of 2019 Turkish military incursions into Syria. As a unanimous vote is required for any new members to be added to NATO, Turkey’s stance may represent a difficult obstacle.

Kaja Kallas, Prime Minister of Estonia, speaking at the 2022 Lennart Meri Conference (Photo: Arno Mikkor / Lennart Meri Conference)

Both the Ukraine conflict and the potential expansion of NATO to include Finland and Sweden were at the centre of debates and discussions on European security at the Lennart Meri Conference (LMC) in Tallinn this month. Estonia, which is seeking to join the Arctic Council as an observer, and has published an Arctic policy document (pdf) in late 2020, also welcomed the NATO applications, as had Estonia’s Baltic neighbours Latvia and Lithuania.

Other participants at the LMC also welcomed the applications, and one common thread amongst the dialogue was the potential for further ties, including in the strategic realm, between Nordic and Baltic governments. The Baltic Sea may find itself ringed by NATO members along with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. Last month, Moscow had threatened to increase its military build-up in the Baltic Sea region, should Helsinki and Tallinn push forward with their NATO interests.

This year’s LMC, which included statements and comments by both Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and President Alar Karis, featured discussions on NATO’s new roles (video) and the potential expansion, as well as the various effects (video) of the Ukraine conflict on both European and Atlantic security. The theme of this conference was ‘Time Flees’ (video), and as Prime Minister Kallas stated, understanding history is key to understanding the significant events which have taken place over the past year in Europe, including attempts in Russia to silence opposition, revive imperial thinking, and to rewrite the past.

Olha Stefanishyna, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, speaks virtually at the 2002 Lennart Meri Conference (Photo: Arno Mikkor / Lennart Meri Conference)

During comments made remotely at the event, Olha Stefanishyna, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, also stated at the conference that the outcome of the conflict will include a stronger and more unified Europe, as well as improved security ties with other major democracies, including Canada, the United States, and Japan.

Many scenarios have been posited for how the Ukraine conflict might end, but at present the effects of the war on the Arctic are already obvious on several fronts. What will be the implications of the growing militarisation of the Arctic on the region and its inhabitants? Will regional and international efforts to curtail climate change effects in the far north be sidelined, and if so for how long? What will be the impact on Arctic governance in the longer term, as well as on efforts to develop new forms of cooperation and regime-building? None of these questions has a ready answer as Arctic diplomacy takes on new and sometimes unpredictable forms.

Related stories from around the North:

Canada: Canada needs a ‘more consistent’ presence in North to bolster security, Inuit leader says, CBC radio

Finland: US military refuelling plane flies over Finland day after NATO announcement, The Independent Barents Observer

NorwayDefence minister says Norway must get stronger in the North, The Independent Barents Observer

Russia: Arctic Council chairman warns against Nordic NATO expansion, The Independent Barents Observer

Sweden: Seeking NATO membership is historic shift for Sweden, says PM, says expert, Radio Sweden

United States: U.S. Army poised to revamp Alaska forces to prep for Arctic fight, The Associated Press


Feds extend restrictions on Arctic offshore drilling

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In this July 16, 2017, file photo, ice is broken up by the passing of the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica as it plies the Beaufort Sea off the coast of Alaska. Federal restrictions on Arctic offshore drilling were set to lift in 2023, but they’ve now been extended. (David Goldman/Associated Press)

A federal suspension of Arctic oil and gas work was set to lift in 2023, but the government of Canada said the order has now been extended. 

In 2016, the Government of Canada announced a ban on issuing new offshore oil and gas licences in Canadian Arctic waters. The federal government made that decision unilaterally and declared the moratorium indefinite.

In response, the premier at the time, Bob McLeod, issued a “red alert” accusing the federal government of being “patronizing” and “colonial” — and bypassing local government.

In 2019, the feds expanded those restrictions and prohibited any kind of oil and gas work on offshore Canadian Arctic waters. That legislation says those restrictions will be repealed on Dec. 31, 2022 but Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) said in an email that it was committed to extending the 2019 prohibition order for as long as the 2016 moratorium is in place.

A federal spokesperson later said in an email that the order was extended in mid-December.

Jackie Jacobson, MLA for Nunakput, the N.W.T.’s northernmost electoral district, said he wants the moratorium lifted — to create jobs for his constituents.

“We need employment,” he said. “Right now people are really suffering in regards to work.”

Nunakput MLA Jackie Jacobson says he wants to see the moratorium lifted to create more jobs in the Beaufort-Delta region. (Sara Minogue/CBC)

Jacobson grew up in Tuktoyaktuk and remembers the oil boom of the ’80s.

“I seen how people were able to work, make a choice, get what they wanted.”

The last major project that brought work to the region, he said, was the four-year Tuk-Inuvik highway project that ended in 2017.

“Now it’s like, we’re just destitute,” Jacobson said.

“We have to be more proactive in pushing the federal government.”

Industry approaching its peak

Energy analyst Doug Matthews said whether the government lifts restrictions on Arctic drilling won’t matter.

“Nobody needs the oil,” he said.

Matthews said the market is expected to reach its peak before companies would be able to bring Arctic oil to market, even if they started drilling tomorrow.

“Whether that peak demand is in three years or five years or 10 years, it’s coming,” he said. “If one were looking to drill in the Beaufort, production would be at least 15 years away.”

The International Energy Agency backs up that view. Its 2022 report predicts that natural gas demand will plateau by the end of the decade and that rising sales of electric vehicles mean that oil demand will also level off by the mid-2030s.

The agency forecasts that by the mid-2020s, total demand for fossil fuel will decline by about 348 million barrels of oil per year, or two exajoules, until 2050.

That means companies would be producing oil into a declining market.

“No company in its right mind is going to do that,” Matthews said.

Responding to claims that lifting the order won’t bring jobs to the Beaufort-Delta, Jacobson said that’s a decision for the oil companies.

“Once the moratorium is lifted, well, I guess we’ll see,” he said.

“If they come and drill, they come and drill. If not, it’s everybody’s choice to do that, but at least the moratorium is lifted and it gives us an opportunity to go as leaders with our government to meet with the Conocos, the Essos and the companies that have land leases up there.”

According to Jacobson, the last time a company drilled in the region was Devon Energy in 2006 with its Paktoa well project — leaving a decade between any new wells and the federal moratorium on issuing new licences.

Balancing economics and environmentalism

Matthews also pointed to rising environmentalism as a reason companies are unlikely to drill in Arctic waters.

Something Jacobson said creates a catch-22 for his beliefs. He’d like to find a balance between the development of natural resources and the conservation required to preserve the Inuvialuit way of life.

“We live off the land, we use resources off the land and in our oceans, but there’s gotta be a way.”

He also believes the technological know-how exists to handle potential oil spills.

The feasibility and environmental impact of Arctic offshore drilling is the subject of a science review commission by the federal government.

A spokesperson for CIRNAC said the department co-developed the review with northern partners and that the review committees are now looking at engaging Northern communities on the report’s findings and next steps.

Premier Caroline Cochrane said she hopes to see the results of that review by early 2023.

N.W.T. Premier Caroline Cochrane said that negotiations on the federal restrictions are ongoing and that she hopes to see the results of the federal science review in early 2023. (Mario De Ciccio/Radio-Canada)

Like Jacobson, Cochrane would also like to see more jobs in the territory’s northernmost region.

“If you’re going to take away jobs from the Northwest Territories you need to look at how you’re going to supplement that,” she said. “Every person deserves an opportunity to access work.”

Cochrane said that she hasn’t formed a personal opinion on whether she wants to see the restrictions ultimately lifted, but said that negotiations are ongoing and that collaboration between governments and northerners is the most important thing.

“I think the ideal outcome for the Northwest Territories is: nothing about us without us,” she said.

“Any decision that’s made about anything in the Northwest Territories needs to be done with the GNWT and the Indigenous governments.”

Related stories from around the North:

A plan to plug gaps in the continent’s Arctic defence shield faces roadblocks

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Russian paratroopers conduct an Arctic exercise on April 25, 2020. Russia’s military buildup in the region is making the need for a planned upgrade of NORAD’s tech even more critical. (Russian Defence Ministry)

[Analysis] Despite the ballyhoo that surrounded last year’s announcement, it’s becoming clear that the modernization of North American air defence systems — a plan to spend $4.9 billion over six years — has a long way to go and a number of key technical obstacles to overcome.

The Trudeau government announced the long-anticipated NORAD modernization plan back in June during the run-up to the NATO leaders summit — a tense gathering where alliance members, sobered by the war in Ukraine, were expected to show how serious they are about defence spending.

And the planned air defence upgrade was a key talking point for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Defence Minister Anita Anand and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly at the NATO summit in Madrid.

In the months since, however, some of the challenges facing that multi-billion-dollar defence makeover have become glaringly obvious — especially in Canada.

The goal of the modernization programme is to create a layered defence over the Far North that will guard against strategic bombers (the kind NORAD was created to counter more than seven decades ago) but also ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles — the kind of weapons we’ve seen pummeling Ukraine.

Local resident Yana embraces a friend as she reacts outside her mother’s house — damaged in a Russian missile strike — in Kyiv, Ukraine on December 29, 2022. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters)

According to the plan, Canada and the U.S. want to improve satellite coverage, introduce modern over-the-horizon radar and deploy undersea sensors and surveillance in the Arctic — especially at the so-called “choke points,” the ocean entrances to the archipelago Canada claims as its sovereign territory.

The good news, according to the Canadian Armed Forces’ operational commander, is that the military has a pretty good handle on surveillance in the Far North at the moment, given the modest level of shipping traffic.

“Do I have decent domain awareness right now? Yes, I do,” said Vice-Admiral Bob Auchterlonie, in charge of Canadian Joint Operations Command. “For example, in the maritime domain there’s only about 150 ships that actually transit the North every year. We know every one of them, we track them very well.”

Look out below

The challenge — or threat — lies under the ocean surface, particularly under the ice where submarines with ballistic or cruise missiles could lurk.

In a year-end interview with CBC News, Auchterlonie said Canada and its allies are always sharing naval intelligence on the whereabouts of adversaries and their major warships, including submarines.

And a host of new technology — some of it still under development — is expected to join NORAD’s underwater network soon, he said.

“I would say that technology has really moved forward in the last number of years. And we’re working with our allies, as well as their own defence scientists, to come up with those capabilities to detect adversaries in our waters … both on the surface and subsurface,” Auchterlonie said.

A titanium capsule with the Russian flag is seen seconds after it was planted by the Mir-1 mini submarine on the Arctic Ocean seabed under the North Pole during a record dive in 2007. (Association of Russian Polar Explorers/AP

The development of that new tech — which could include portable sensor arrays, unmanned ships and unmanned underwater vehicles built to hunt submarines — is taking place in conjunction with the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet.

Last summer, the U.S. Navy’s chief of naval operations presented a plan for revitalizing the fleet by 2045. It calls for a fleet of 373 manned ships and 150 unmanned patrol ships, for a total of 523 ships. The navy has asked the U.S. Congress for more than $250 million US to develop unmanned surface and subsurface ships.

Even though building those new weapons systems is a work in progress, Auchterlonie said Canada is keenly following developments.

That said, he added, Canada and the U.S. could start deploying tech in existence now — such as underwater drones — to protect the North.

The war in Ukraine is driving an undeniable sense of urgency in the West over the need to develop new surveillance technology — and Canada has been watching Moscow’s moves in the North with growing alarm.

The Russian navy’s missile cruiser Marshal Ustinov sails off for an exercise in the Arctic in January, 2022. (Russian Defence Ministry Press Service/The Associated Press)

“Russia is rebuilding its Arctic military infrastructure to Soviet-era capability,” Jody Thomas, the prime minister’s national security and intelligence adviser, recently told the House of Commons defence committee.

“They had stopped. And they’re returning. I think that’s interesting. They’re continuing their construction in the Arctic despite the economic woes they are experiencing because of their illegal and barbaric invasion of Ukraine.”

During his visit to Canada’s Far North last summer, Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of NATO, remarked that the shortest route for Russia to attack North America is through the Arctic.

Canadian officials have stated repeatedly that the planned purchase of F-35 stealth fighters and the introduction of modern over-the-horizon (OTH) radar will go a long way toward easing that fear.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrive in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut on Thursday, August 25, 2022. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press)

Over-the-horizon (OTH) radar systems can locate targets beyond the range of conventional radar. They also draw an enormous amount of energy. Defence scientists are trying to figure out how to power the stations in remote northern locations in an environmentally responsible way.

“Due to their extreme size, most OTH radar systems are located in remote areas where access to large amounts of power from the electrical grid is inadequate. Therefore, diesel generators are routinely used,” said a Defence Research and Development Canada technical memo written in 2006, when the military was studying the feasibility of the new systems.

It warned that, to prevent shutdowns, a two-megawatt generator burning 15,000 litres of diesel fuel per day would be required to power an OTH array.

That “leads to a separate problem with continuous fuel supply,” said the memo. “Disruptions in fuel supply (say, due to severe adverse winter weather events) could be mitigated by keeping a reserve of fuel for a few days.”

Two RADARSAT spacecraft are prepared for vibration testing in the MDA facilities in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Que. (Canadian Space Agency)

Perhaps the most immediate and vexing problem facing Canadian officials is the country’s rapidly aging chain of government-owned RADARSAT Constellation satellites. The federal auditor general warned in November that the satellites could outrun their useful lifespan by 2026.

Replacements for those satellites — which are used by several government departments, including National Defence — are still on the drawing board. The current government promised dedicated military surveillance satellites in its 2017 defence policy but — as Auditor General Karen Hogan noted in her recent report — those systems aren’t set for launch until 2035.

Government needs ‘a contingency plan,’ says AG

“What we’re looking for is for the government to have a bit of a contingency plan,” Hogan told the Commons defence committee on Dec. 8, 2022.

“What will happen should these satellites reach the end of their useful lives? Right now, the government either buys information commercially or turns to its allies.”

Nicholas Swale, a senior official in Hogan’s office, told that same committee hearing the satellite system is already overtaxed.

“There are multiple departments seeking information from these satellites and their needs are currently not being met,” he said.

In a year-end interview with CBC News, Gen. Wayne Eyre, the chief of the defence staff, was asked whether the Department of National Defence will speed up a program to launch dedicated satellites before 2035.

“At this point, I don’t know,” he said. “But we’re certainly going to try.”

Related stories from around the North: 

Canada: Senate committee studying Arctic security in response to int’l interest in region, CBC News

Finland: No return to pre-war reality when it comes to Arctic cooperation, says Finnish rep, Eye on the Arctic

Norway: Norway limits access for Russian fishing trawlers in security push, Thomson Reuters

Russia: Newly deployed nuke-bombers at Kola is certainly a signalling, expert says, The Independent Barents Observer

United States: Two Russians seek asylum after reaching remote Alaska island, The Associated Press

Northern premiers say Canada can’t have Arctic security without infrastructure

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Northwest Territories Premier Caroline Cochrane listens at a meeting of western premiers, in Whistler, B.C., in June. “I hope no one gets really sick because our capacity is very limited,” she said of the N.W.T.’s health care system. (Darryl Dyck/CP)

Arctic security is under renewed focus as Russia and China eye the region, but leaders in the North say Canada won’t be able to exert sovereignty if their communities aren’t built up properly.

The premiers from all three Northern territories say the federal government, while mindful of the need to strengthen Arctic security, has lacked a cohesive infrastructure plan to construct the foundation required to reach that goal.

Northwest Territories Premier Caroline Cochrane said in an interview that while policymakers have increased talks of building up the North, few concrete plans for key infrastructure such as hospitals, telecommunications, airports and road systems have emerged.

Without those plans and proper funding, Cochrane said it would be difficult for the federal government to achieve its goal of stronger Arctic security.

“Without all-season roads, people don’t have access to labour markets and cost-effective food,” she said. “You need communications so that when you send up whatever they’re going to do to secure the Arctic, you have the infrastructure to communicate.”

She added that “everything starts with health care. I hope no one gets really sick because our capacity is very limited.”

In June, the Senate released a report that said “more must be done” by the federal government in the North given “an ever-changing geopolitical context, rising interest and activity in the Arctic,” as well as climate change.

Meanwhile, the United States last year updated its Arctic strategy in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a plan that included increased U.S. military presence in the Far North.

A balloon as ‘a turning point’

Even before its war with Ukraine, Russia put forward an ambitious program to reaffirm its presence and stake its claim in the Arctic, including efforts to build ports and other infrastructure, and expand its icebreaker fleet.

Meanwhile, China has called for the development of a “Polar Silk Road” as part of an initiative to take advantage of possible trade routes opening in the Arctic due to climate change.

In February, an apparent Chinese spy balloon drifted through Canadian and U.S. airspace before being downed by a U.S. jet, while another object of unconfirmed origin was also spotted over central Yukon around the same time.

Yukon Premier Ranj Pillai said in an interview that event was a turning point in the conversation about building out the North, with many policymakers re-engaging the territories about infrastructure development.

“When the world really focused on what was happening in the Yukon, when you had all those media outlets come and you had the federal government on site, I think that was a chance for people to really see where the gaps are in place. And then it led to a bigger conversation.”

Yukon Premier Ranj Pillai contends that the arrival of a mysterious balloon over the Yukon marked a turning point in the conversation about building out the North. (Darryl Dyck/CP)

But given the urgency of the need for housing and other fundamentals, Pillai said the federal government needs to move
faster.   

“When you take in consideration how long it takes in our country to build a very substantial project like a port in Nunavut or a port in the Northwest Territories or the Yukon, and you think about all the steps it has to take and the time we’re behind already,” Pillai said separately at last week’s recent Western Premiers’ Conference in Whistler, B.C.

For University of Calgary Research Associate and Canadian Northern Corridor Program researcher Katharina Koch, Cochrane and Pillai’s criticisms of Ottawa’s handling of building up the North is neither surprising nor unwarranted.

Koch said the criticisms echoed what many Northern community residents have told her, and Canada has a distinct lack of an integrated Arctic strategy compared with other G7 nations. 

“This topic of security and safeguarding Canada’s sovereignty, it ties into so many different other issues,” Koch said. “One element or aspect to start with is actually to make sure that Northern residents have access to basic services. It means education, health care and clean drinking water.”

“This will ultimately support Canada’s goal of establishing security and projecting outward Canadian sovereignty in terms of the Arctic.”

Improvement to broadband internet access is desperately needed, said Koch. She said the “digital divide” severely limits growth potential and economic viability in the North.

‘Conversation has shifted’

There has been movement on those fronts. 

Construction of the Dempster Fibre Line, an 800-kilometre fibre-optic cable, is underway in Yukon and Northwest Territories. Federal Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal meanwhile announced last November $7 million in support for the construction of the Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link, a multi-purpose connection to deliver renewable energy and high-speed internet to communities in Nunavut through Manitoba.

Nunavut Premier P.J. Akeeagok said the project represents welcome progress, but additional investment is still needed to address energy security and climate change in the Arctic.

Nunavut Premier P.J. Akeeagok says the conversation has shifted, but not to the level that could be called nation-building. (Darryl Dyck/CP)

“I think the conversation has shifted, but we haven’t yet seen any investment of that to the magnitude that we need to see from the lens of nation-building,” he said at the Western Premiers’ Conference.

Cochrane said a key missing link is local engagement, with Ottawa often not knowing what Northern communities need, and not consulting residents to find out.

“I’ve seen too many people come from the south and come up to the north and think they know what they’re getting into — and come out with frostbite, vehicles sunk in the ice, being lost, having to get rescued,” she said.

“So I think the big thing is that, if we are talking about Arctic safety and Arctic sovereignty, it’s important that Canada talk with us — that they actually consult with us, not just listen, but actually hear us.”

Related stories from around the North:  

Arctic security: Denmark, Greenland, Faroe Islands forge consensus, Eye on the Arctic

Canada: Vulnerability of Canada’s Arctic a security threat that needs urgent action: report, Eye on the Arctic

China: Satellite imagery reveals construction progress on new Chinese Antarctic base, Eye on the Arctic

Denmark: Danish policy prioritizes low-conflict Arctic amidst Russian tensions, Eye on the Arctic

FinlandTrial fence on Finland-Russia border nears completion, Lapland phase next, Yle news

Greenland: Growing focus on Arctic puts Greenland at higher risk of cyber attacks: assessment, Eye on the Arctic

IcelandIceland authorizes U.S. submarine service visits, Eye on the Arct

Norway: NATO scrambled to meet Russian bombers, aircraft north of carrier strike group, The Independent Barents Observer

RussiaWagner Group continues recruiting in Murmansk in Arctic Russia, The Independent Barents Observer

Sweden: US bombers land in northern Sweden for first time, Radio Sweden

United StatesFirst U.S. deep water port for the Arctic to host cruise ships, military, Eye on the Arctic

Canada pledges to work with U.S. over competing claims to Arctic sea floor

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The federal government is pledging to work with its American counterparts after the U.S. claimed parts of the Arctic seafloor that Canada also wants. In this 2017 file photo, ice is broken up by the passing of the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica as it sails through the Beaufort Sea off the coast of Alaska. (David Goldman/AP/Canadian Press)

The federal government is pledging to work with its American counterparts after the U.S. claimed parts of the Arctic sea floor that Canada also wants.

Grantly Franklin, spokesman for Global Affairs Canada, said in an email that Canada expects to follow the process set out in a United Nations treaty despite the fact the U.S. hasn’t ratified the Convention on the Law of the Sea.

“Canada and the U.S. are in frequent communication with regards to the continental shelf in the Arctic and have expressed their commitment along with other Arctic states to the orderly settlement of overlapping claims,” Franklin wrote.

The U.S. filed its extended continental shelf claim last month with the United Nations agency that evaluates such requests. As expected, it includes a large chunk of the Beaufort Sea floor that Canada also seeks to control.

“It’s stuff that we’ve always suspected they were going to do,” said Rob Huebert, a professor at the University of Calgary’s Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies. “The Americans have been very careful not to have any overlap with the Russians but they have overlap with us.”

A large part of the overlap concerns how the border should be drawn. Canada wants it extended directly north from the 141st meridian while the U.S. says it should be drawn at a 90-degree angle from the shoreline.

Under the UN treaty, countries have the right to manage the environment and develop natural resources on the ocean floor if they can prove their continental shelf extends more than 200 nautical miles, or about 370 kilometres, from their coast and is a natural extension of the continent. Rights to an extended continental shelf don’t include control over matters such as fisheries or shipping.

The UN doesn’t rule on boundaries, but evaluates the science behind each country’s claim and leaves it to them to negotiate a settlement.

Sea ice breaks up as the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica sails through the Beaufort Sea off the coast of Alaska in 2017. (David Goldman/The Associated Press)

Although the U.S. has not signed the Convention on the Law of the Sea, it has pledged to work within it.

“The U.S. views the [convention] definition of the continental shelf as customary international law and has adhered to the definition in delineating its continental shelf limits,” Franklin wrote.

‘One ugly chicken soup’

The American decision to follow the convention is good news for the rule of international law, Huebert said.

He said Canada’s willingness to work with a country outside the convention may weaken the treaty. But given the small chance the U.S. will sign on any time soon, Huebert called the move “politically smart.”

Huebert notes that Canada, which filed its claim in 2019, now has overlapping claims with Russia and Denmark as well as the U.S.

“Every single one of our Arctic neighbours has an overlap with us,” said Huebert.

He said growing geopolitical tension around the world isn’t going to make drawing those lines on the waves any easier.

“You have to resolve things peacefully if you’re part of the convention,” he said.

“But you have to overlay that with the geopolitical situation we have now. We’re in such a conflictual environment — with Russia, primarily, and now our two key allies. It’s one ugly chicken soup.”

Canada’s submission would bring 1.2 million square kilometres of sea floor under Canadian control, a territory about the size of Alberta and Saskatchewan combined.

The Amerasian Basin, which includes the disputed area of the Beaufort Sea, is thought to include significant oil reserves.

The United States Geological Survey estimates it could hold up to 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent — although that number is considered a “probabilistic” assessment based on Arctic geology rather than a hard figure.

The UN body that assesses the quality of the science in each country’s expanded continental shelf claim is expected to take years to arrive at its decisions.

Related stories from around the North:

Canada: Canadian Coast Guard adds three weeks to Arctic season as icebreakers head North, CBC News 

Greenland: Year-long, international Arctic science expedition comes to an end, Eye on the Arctic

Russia: Russia’s Rosatomflot files lawsuits against shipyard as world’s most powerful icebreakers are notoriously delayed, The Independent Barents Observer

Sweden: Sweden’s FM calls for more EU involvement in Arctic as country hosts EU Arctic Forum, Radio Sweden

United States: Trump advances new icebreaker plan, Alaska Public Media

Yukon’s new Arctic security council to help prepare territory for a changing world

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Ken Coates, chair of the Yukon Arctic Security Advisory Council, right, with Yukon Premier Ranj Pillai, announcing the creation of the advisory council on Thursday in Whitehorse. (Julien Gignac/CBC)

A new expert council will assess risks and provide advice to the Government of Yukon to ensure the territory’s needs are considered in federal decision making about Arctic security.

The Yukon Arctic Security Advisory Council was formally introduced at a media event on Thursday. The territorial government said the council is mandated to “study risks across the Yukon security landscape, determine what assets and infrastructure require additional protection and identify opportunities for the Government of Yukon to work with the Government of Canada to enhance security across the territory.”

Yukon Premier Ranj Pillai said the council will develop a report “which will include important context, considerations and recommendations for the Yukon government including both short and long term perspectives.”

The report will be released publicly when complete; it’s expected by April.

“Do I think we’re safe as Canadians right now? Do I think that Canada and the partnership and NORAD is looking after us? Yeah, I do,” PIllai said. “Do I think that we are making the appropriate moves at the regional level, or sub-regional level, as a territory in conjunction with Canada? No, I think we’re behind.”

“I think as Yukoners, and with experts and our council, we have an opportunity to share information and ideas around partnerships with Indigenous governments and opportunities to work with local folks to make sure that we have a longer-term plan.”

Council chair Ken Coates — distinguished Fellow and Director of Indigenous Affairs at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and chair of Yukon University’s Indigenous governance program — agreed with Pillai’s assessment that Canada is a safe place.

“But the problem with security and defence is, security and defence isn’t about today,” he said. “It’s about how you have to prepare for 15, 20 and 30 years down the line.

“Canadians generally have trouble talking about defence and security,” Coates said. “First and Second World War, we were completely unprepared when both those wars broke out. We did not have a good military presence. We weren’t ready to go. It took us a long time to ramp it up.

“In this day and age, you don’t have a lot of time because the conflict is so different and so much more intense, and it’s so much more technological.”

The other members of the council are:

  • Maj.-Gen. (Retired) Derek Joyce, who served in the Canadian Armed Forces for 36 years;
  • Heather Exner-Pirot, Senior Fellow and director of energy, natural resources and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, special advisor to the Business Council of Canada and research advisor to the Indigenous Resource Network;
  • Jennifer Spence, an Arctic Initiative Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and
  • P. Whitney Lackenbauer, Canada Research Chair in the Study of the Canadian North and a professor in the School for the Study of Canada at Trent University.

Pillai said the council has a $100,000 budget, which will cover administration fees, and per diems for council members. The council’s first meeting was held in November.

Related stories from around the North:  

Arctic security: Denmark, Greenland, Faroe Islands forge consensus, Eye on the Arctic

Canada: Vulnerability of Canada’s Arctic a security threat that needs urgent action: report, Eye on the Arctic

China: Satellite imagery reveals construction progress on new Chinese Antarctic base, Eye on the Arctic

Denmark: Danish policy prioritizes low-conflict Arctic amidst Russian tensions, Eye on the Arctic

FinlandTrial fence on Finland-Russia border nears completion, Lapland phase next, Yle news

Greenland: Growing focus on Arctic puts Greenland at higher risk of cyber attacks: assessment, Eye on the Arctic

IcelandIceland authorizes U.S. submarine service visits, Eye on the Arct

Norway: NATO scrambled to meet Russian bombers, aircraft north of carrier strike group, The Independent Barents Observer

RussiaWagner Group continues recruiting in Murmansk in Arctic Russia, The Independent Barents Observer

Sweden: US bombers land in northern Sweden for first time, Radio Sweden

United StatesFirst U.S. deep water port for the Arctic to host cruise ships, military, Eye on the Arctic





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