Arctic

On RIA Novosti’s talk show “Russian Angle,” host Andrei Zolotov recently interviewed Viktor Boyarski, Chairman of the Russian Geographic Society’s Polar Committee. The two discussed the International Arctic Forum on the Arctic, which took place in Moscow from September 22-23. The five-minute video can be seen online here. While Russian news in English is ostensibly […]

The International Arctic Forum took place in Moscow, Russia last week. Hosted by the Russian Geographical Society at Moscow State University, the conference was initially supposed to take place in April until the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull disrupted air travel. Entitled “The Arctic: Territory of Dialogue,” the two-day conference was home to a number of discussions […]

There are several big headlines about Arctic geopolitics this week concerning four of the Big Five: Norway, Russia, Canada, and the U.S. “Norway, Russia reach deal to turn down heat on Arctic claims,” The Montreal Gazette. Norway and Russia have finally concluded a process that began last April to officially delimit the maritime border between […]

On September 4, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Deputy Secretary David J. Hayes wrapped up a three-day trip to Alaska. The two officials met with locals, Inupiat Eskimos, and representatives from the oil industry to discuss both oil drilling and environmental conservation on the North Slope and in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. […]

Foreign Policy magazine has an interesting article by Lawson Brigham, who I recently wrote about in my blog after his visit to UCLA. It’s entitled, “The Arctic: Everyone wants a piece of the thawing far north. But that doesn’t mean anarchy will reign at the top of the world.” In the article, Brigham contends with […]

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has embarked on his second-annual tour of his country’s Arctic region. He began his five-day trip in Churchill, Manitoba, located on Hudson Bay. Here in this small town, Harper announced a new CAN $13.4 million in funding for upgrades to the ramps, taxis, and runways of the local airport. In […]

NASA’s remote sensing instrument, ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer), has taken a remotely sensed image of the massive chunk of ice which calved off of the Petermann Glacier in western Greenland on August 5. ASTER is a high-resolution sensor on board the Terra satellite which scans the entire surface of the earth […]

Last week, a massive iceberg four times the size of Manhattan broke off of the Petermann Glacier in West Greenland. It is the largest chunk of ice to calve from the glacier since 1962. It is now floating down the Nares Strait between Greenland and Canada. To give a better idea of the sheer volume […]

The Globe & Mail has an interesting editorial on the Parks Canada expedition to find the wreckages of three lost ships in the Northwest Passage, which I wrote about last week. The expedition has already discovered the HMS Expedition shipwreck, which had been missing for 150 years. The editorial quotes Environment Minister Jim Prentice, who […]

BP, ExxonMobil, and the latter’s Canadian subsidiary, Imperial Oil, are joining forces to drill for oil in the Arctic. BP’s $1.18 billion Exploration License 449 (also known as Pokak) allows it to drill in a region 75 miles north of Inuvik, the Northwest Territories. Exxon’s $600 million Exploration License 446 (also known as Ajurak) would […]

It appears that the “dangerous objects” that are the target of the recently-commenced Russian expedition also exist in Canadian waters. While Russian officials are trying to clean up the Northern Sea Route to make it safe for shipping, on the other side of the planet, Canadian archeologists have just found the long-lost HMS Investigator in […]

Before Russia can expand ship traffic along its Northern Sea Route, the government must inspect and clean up its waterways. After all, the country wouldn’t want a ship ramming into a hidden radioactive submarine part. Consequently, the rescue tug boat Neotrazimy has embarked on a 74-day expedition from Arkhangelsk, in western Russia, to Anadyr, situated […]