Last month, the New York Times published an article illustrating the start of the traditional whale hunting season in Barrow, Alaska. The hunt is allowed despite an international moratorium on whale hunting because it is carried out for subsistence purposes. Indeed, the whale hunters, after killing a massive bowhead whale, distributed the muktuk (whale meat) […]
A lot has been said about the competition for the Arctic’s natural resources, like oil and gas, fisheries, and minerals. Little has been said about using the cold as a resource. Now, of all companies, Facebook is intending to capitalize on the Arctic’s frigid climate by building a data center in Luleå, on the coast […]
Russia is known for its domes, which generally sit on top of Orthodox churches. Soon, one might be on top of the world in Russia’s neck of the Arctic, this time sitting atop a city. During the Arctic: Territory of Dialogue conference last month in Murmansk, Putin reviewed plans and mock-ups for a a 5,000-person domed […]
The Canadian government recently announced the results of the bidding process to construct vessels for the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy. Canada plans to spend $33 billion on 28 large combat and non-combat vessels over the next 30 years. As part of that procurement the Royal Canadian Navy is slated to receive six to eight Arctic […]
For the first time ever, the Norwegian Chief of Defence is paying a visit to the Russian General of the Army in Moscow. On October 11, Chief of Defence Harald Sunde visited General Nikolai Makarov in Moscow to discuss bilateral cooperation. Over the past two decades, Norway and Russia have built a strong history of […]
The flagship of Canada’s aging fleet of icebreakers suffered mechanical failure to its center propeller on September 19 and has been anchored off the coast of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut since September 27. The 42-year old St-Laurent had been on a joint mission with the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy to conduct bathymetric surveys and mapping of the […]
Last week, the University of Québec at Montréal hosted the two-day “Arctic in Transition: Regional Issues and Geopolitics” conference. My friend, Joël Plouffe, one of the conferences’ main organizers and an expert on geopolitics in the Arctic, let me know that it was taking place. The Centre Jacques Cartier, ArcticNet, and the Northern Research Forum […]
According to an article by NASA scientists published in the journal Nature, the ozone layer over the Arctic reached unprecedentedly low levels during the winter of 2010-2011 and for the first time a significant ozone hole was recorded. Ozone is a molecule consisting of three oxygen atoms and is responsible for absorbing the vast majority […]
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of the Interior upheld the sale of 487 leases to drill for oil in the Chukchi Sea. The leases were initially sold in February 2008 to companies like Shell and Statoil for billions of dollars, but a group of environmentalists and Alaska Native sued, claiming that Sale 193 violated the National […]
Today, John Duncan, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, and Leona Aglukkaq, Minister of Health and Minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, announced that the government would begin requesting design proposals for the Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS). The station is a key part of Canada’s Northern Strategy. In the press release, John […]
An exceptional wildfire near Bettles, Alaska in 2007 released as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the entire Arctic tundra absorbs in a year according to a new report in the journal Nature. The Anaktuvuk River fire lasted for more than three months and burned across more than 1,000 sq km in central Alaska. […]
For the second year in a row, the Russian Geographical Society has organized the International Arctic Forum. While last year’s forum took place in the capital, Moscow, this year’s forum, “The Arctic – Territory of Dialogue,” has moved farther north to Arkhanghelsk, Russia – a city Putin deemed in his speech “the ancient capital of […]
On September 14, General Walt Natynczyk, Canada’s Chief of Defence, began a three day trip to Moscow to meet with Russia’s Army General Nikolay Yegorovich Makarov, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces/First Deputy Minister of Defence and General of the Army. General Makarov invited General Natynczyk to visit Russia last January when they met […]
Cairn Energy, an Edinburgh-based oil and gas exploration company, runs one of the largest exploration programs in Greenland. It has a history of being a risk-taker and has succeeded in the past, such as when it discovered oil in Rajasthan, India after purchasing Shell’s operations there. However, the latest results from drilling in the Arctic […]
Scientists at the University of Bremen confirmed today that on September 8, 2011 Arctic sea ice extent reached a new all-time low, superseding the previous low set in September 2007. Arctic sea ice extent undergoes a pronounced yearly cycle, with about 15 million square kilometers in March and 5 million square kilometers in September. Since […]