Here are some of the stories from around the Arctic that we've been following this week:
The case for an Iqaluit deep-water port gets stronger
A deep-water Arctic port has long been sought in the United States, either at Nome or a nearby site, but the Canadian territory of Nunavut is also seeking such a port. Earlier this year, the new Liberal government said it would continue plans for an upgrade launched under the preceding Conservative government, and that promise took on new urgency in late February when a Canadian fishing vessel took on water in Davis Strait before being rescued and eventually escorted to Nuuk, Greenland. The escort was from the Danish Navy, while a Canadian helicopter launched from almost 1,300 miles away in Nova Scotia. "The fact that a Danish ship, hundreds of miles away, had to come in to save a Canadian ship in Canadian waters raises questions about Canada's ability to exert sovereignty in the Far North," a fresh report from Vice News points out. Meanwhile, a University of British Columbia law professor tells Vice, the only other nation with a comparably large Arctic coastline, Russia, has 16 deep-water ports.
Canada's "coast to coast to coast" highway link is connected
A highway in Canada's Northwest Territories linking Inuvik with the Arctic Ocean village of Tuktoyaktuk was connected late last week. The highway that will "for the first time will extend Canada's highway network from coast to coast to coast," as The Globe and Mail put it, depends on keeping permafrost cold enough, the project's head told that newspaper. Even though it was built for a resource extraction boom that never materialized, ordinary people should totally take advantage of the road trip potential it opens up, says Inverse. It's scheduled to open in the fall of 2017.
Further reading:
- Despite a few high points, recent public health studies in Greenland find persistent challenges, The Arctic Journal reports.
- "It is too late to stop climate change entirely," writes The Guardian's Suzanne Goldberg. "But it is not too late to stop treating the Arctic as a great adventure playground for the rich and the restless."
- Here's what it's like to live at the U.S. Air Force's Thule Air Base in Greenland.
- In Resolute, Nunavut, U.S. and Canadian troops are participating in Arctic exercises. And they get to test some impressive snow-going vehicles.
- "The reality is that the U.S. no longer has the capacity to operate effectively in Arctic waters," argues an opinion piece backing icebreaker investment in the Seattle Times. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner's editorial board makes a similar case.