In recent days, two op-eds on the Arctic have been published in North American newspapers. In the Canadian daily, the Toronto Star, Michael Byers, a professor at the University of British Columbia and an expert on the Arctic, penned a piece lamenting Northern Canada’s lack of development compared to Russia. Since he is currently a […]
I received a large reader response to my post about the trapped Beluga whales on December 15. Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations sent the ship, the Rubin, to break up the ice in the Sinyavinsky Channel to free the 100 whales, but severe weather forced the ship to seek safe harbor, as RIA Novosti reports. […]
Just a couple of weeks ago, a Russian oil rig sank off the coast of Sakhalin Island, leaving at least 17 dead and 36 more missing. Only 14 people survived, and the search has been called off to ensure the safety of the rescuers in harsh conditions. Now, in the Arctic shipyard in the village […]
The Russian oil rig Kolskaya sunk 200 miles off the east coast of Sakhalin late Saturday night in stormy weather with 67 crewmembers were on board. So far, four people have been found dead and 14 people rescued, while 49 people still remain lost. The Kolskaya sunk in twenty minutes in fifteen-foot, 32 degree seas. In […]
Off the east coast of Chukotka’s peninsula, winter has come hard and fast, freezing parts of the Bering Strait. Fifteen miles south of the village of Yanrakynnot in the Sinyavinsky Strait, 100 beluga whales are trapped in the ice. Hunters have reported that they are in two polynyas and are currently able to breathe freely. However, food and clean water […]
The Congressional Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, part of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, held a hearing on Thursday, December 1 on U.S. Coast Guard operations in the Arctic. The chief topic of concern was icebreakers. As I reported back in February, the U.S. will be without heavy icebreakers for at least two […]
Summary of the Past Year This year, the Arctic has witnessed a lot more cooperation and a lot less conflict. Whereas past years were marked by sovereignty squabbles, boundary disputes, and accusations of airspace intrusions, this year, events took a more peaceful turn. First of all, members of the Arctic council signed the Agreement on […]
Iceland’s Minister of the Interior, Ögmundur Jónasson, rejected Chinese businessman Huang Nubo’s bid to purchase a large tract of territory in the northeastern region of the country. Huang had sought an exemption from an Icelandic law which prohibits nationals from outside the European Economic Association from purchasing large amounts of land. Huang wanted to purchase […]
For fifty years, the U.S. has debated drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). In 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton declared 8.9 million acres in northeast Alaska to be a federally protected area, called the Alaska National Wildlife Range. In 1980, Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands […]
Countries, non-profit organizations, indigenous peoples, and natural resource companies are all interested in obtaining a part of the Arctic. Now, we can add a hedge fund to the list. Guggenheim Partners, the financial services company which manages over $125 billion in assets, has confirmed that it is looking into establishing an investment fund in the […]
I read in the Economist (November 5-11 edition) about a new project Wikipedia is undertaking to encourage greater production of articles in other countries by people within those countries. The company is partnering with three universities in Pune, India, offering course credit to students in exchange for their writing articles on a certain theme. […]
Peter Taksoe-Jensen, the Danish Ambassador to the U.S., gave a talk at Dartmouth on Tuesday entitled, “Arctic Challenges and Opportunities: A Danish Perspective.” I wasn’t able to find a transcript of his speech online, but Dartmouth’s school newspaper has a few quotes from his talk, which he gave to approximately 50 people. He warned against […]
I spent the past couple of days in Alberta, Canada. After a brief stop in Edmonton, a group of journalists and I headed to Shell Albian Sands outside Fort McMurray, in northern Alberta. We flew over the boreal forest, where the late fall temperatures had already caused lakes and rivers to freeze under a white […]
On October 20, President Barack Obama and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg met at the White House in Washington, D.C. They discussed issues such as Norway’s involvement in the campaigns in Libya and Afghanistan, and the domestic terrorist attacks in July. One other issue they also discussed was the High North. In their joint remarks […]
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) […]