Look out for that bear!

June 5, 2017 9:57 AM

It was announced that with the increasing ship traffic through the Arctic, the World Wildlife Fund is being proactive by creating a nautical chart that identifies wildlife hazards as well as traditional hunting grounds (with a caveat to “be courteous of community boats and hunting parties”). Meanwhile, the people of Adak Island, in the Aleutians, are also being proactive as they position to be an Arctic deepwater port. They certainly have the infrastructure. The former US Navy base still has “houses for up to 6,000 people, a bowling alley, swimming pool, 400-seat theater, and even a disused McDonald’s restaurant.” But, it wasn't always this way.

Shipping through the Arctic has always been the dream of explorers. The was the goal of Sir John Franklin's expedition in 1846. Unfortunately he crashed on the ice, and may have been eaten by the crew. Several other explorers were sent to the Northwest Passage, including the McClure expedition, who was sent to see what happened to Franklin, and was not eaten.

“Hey guys, guess what? It's hard to navigate through that.”

- Explorers, probably

It has been known since explorers were on the menu, that the Arctic pack ice prevented regular marine shipping throughout most of the year. Dozens of ships have successfully gone through the ice carefully and slowly in the summer when the ice can be broken and moved out the way, including the RCMP ship, St. Roch, which was the first ship to go from West to East, and one that we in British Columbia are proud of. Since 2009, the ice pack has become soft enough that year round travel is possible. A successful passage by Nordic Orion in September 2013, proved this. Fully loaded, Nordic Orion was 73,500 tonnes and too large to sail through the Panama Canal. The ship successfully made the passage North following St. Roch's route, West to East.

Ice still makes it hard to navigate, and there have been small dips in the usage of Arctic shipping routes as cheaper prices for bunker fuel makes it easy to ship longer, safer distances. It seems apparent that shipping to the North is going to be more and more common, and even tourism is getting into the business, in a big way. The will North will have adapt to change, and the world will adapt to the understanding that the Northwest Passage is just another shipping route.

posted by HakaiMagazine (5 comments total)

Interesting how this ties into the coast guard building more ice breakers, and that even with sadly melting ice, they still have a use in the arctic today.
posted by Carillon at 11:29 AM on June 5, 2017

There will always be ice to break! For a little while.
posted by HakaiMagazine at 11:57 AM on June 5, 2017

Here's a quick video vignette from last year about the Northern Sea Route above Russia opening up, as mentioned in the penultimate OP link.
posted by XMLicious at 11:58 AM on June 5, 2017

Adak is nowhere near the Arctic, wtf? Did the writer of that look on a map?
posted by fshgrl at 8:49 PM on June 5, 2017

If you've got access to Netflix I just came across something called The Polar Sea released last year. Haven't watched it yet but the description is This spectacularly filmed documentary follows the journey of modern-day explorers and scientists crossing the rapidly deteriorating Northwest Passage.
posted by XMLicious at 5:52 PM on June 20, 2017