Eye In The Sky
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Underway said:
Not my reference of choice but it makes the point...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_resources_race
and
https://arctic.ru/resources/
The Arctic - Resource Exploitation, Development and Population
- Thread starter Eye In The Sky
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Not my reference of choice but it makes the point...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_resources_race
and
https://arctic.ru/resources/
Underway said:
The Russians certainly see the Arctic differently. They certainly perceive the route from the Barents to the Bering as quickly becoming a viable trade route, and are allocating resources to it.
But then again, the Russians actually care about the Arctic enough to actually live there. The city of Archangelsk alone is 350,000, Murmansk another 300,000. There are about 120,000 Canadians living north of 60, with the largest city (Whitehorse) clocking in at only about 40,000.
I suspect that the future of the Arctic is going to be Russian because they actually want it and are willing to live there, Canadians seem to value the Arctic more as a symbol.
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Eye In The Sky said:
Resources in the ground are not wealth. Resources buried under ice and an ocean are really not wealth. Currently and until the arctic is warm the resources are locked away and worth nothing until exploited. If the arctic is warm then regular subs and ships will be able to operate their without ice issues. Arctic resources are to me in almost the same category as mining asteroids, or colonizing Mars. Cool ideas, but economically and industrially no viable right now. But this is for another thread.
Colin Parkinson
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Russia has been exploiting it's Arctic resources for years, hell just go on GE and look at the community Nuuk in Greenland, go on streetview and look at it and compare that to Arctic communities in Canada, we are way behind.
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Colin P said:
And what has it cost them? Not to mention that they have much less ice then we do on our side. Guaranteed they are losing money on their resource extraction attempts even still. And they have the advantages of large population centres up north (due to the northern russian climate actually being warmer then in Canada at an equivalent lattitude). Realistically from a geopolitcialy and strategic perspective Canada's arctic is almost as backwater as antarctica despite the gov't best attempts a propaganda.
Eye In The Sky
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Arctic resources could be a conflict of the future. :2c:
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What is the deal with Asian Russia/Siberia/ ie east of the Urals? I've been in Central Europe, Poland and Ukraine and found it at worst equivalent to southern Canadian winters but I'm guessing Siberia is a different beast altogether. It seems hard to believe that the area can sustain the population it does. I know the rivers aid transportation and the Russian side of the Arctic clears earlier than ours but it just seems there is a lot of people there compared to our Arctic. Does it all just come down to the mineral wealth?
I know this is off topic but this thread is all over the place
I know this is off topic but this thread is all over the place
Agreed...
But...
1. I think I'm actually going to take a vacation to Nuuk, Greenland. I had no idea a place like that existed, and it might be fun to explore real quick on the way to/back from Europe sometime soon.
2. I think the population of Russia would have a large influence on the size of their northern communities. Yes they do have less ice, and it does warm earlier than our side. But a population of 144 million compared to...35 million-ish? That alone I think would be a big factor. Plus natural resource development. (One of the anchors of the Russian economy. like ours, is natural resources & a vast country geographically.)
But...
1. I think I'm actually going to take a vacation to Nuuk, Greenland. I had no idea a place like that existed, and it might be fun to explore real quick on the way to/back from Europe sometime soon.
2. I think the population of Russia would have a large influence on the size of their northern communities. Yes they do have less ice, and it does warm earlier than our side. But a population of 144 million compared to...35 million-ish? That alone I think would be a big factor. Plus natural resource development. (One of the anchors of the Russian economy. like ours, is natural resources & a vast country geographically.)
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suffolkowner said:
More people because of Murmansk mostly. Russia has no frost free ports and the Murmansk one was a key in WW2 and Cold War strategy. Lost of gov't military investment and legacy populations. Cities hit a certain size and they generally become self sustaining. The other larger cities are built around Soviet dictates regarding an industry etc... Russia is a unique place in many ways due to her geography and history.
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Interesting thread. Canada's Arctic could be far more developed, the issue really comes down to a lack of investment in infrastructure. This rest squarely on the shoulders of the Federal Government.
Just look at Alaska which is right next to the Yukon. Oil industry is everywhere there, Anchorage is a big city and there is a Division of soldiers there.
Meanwhile, Yellowknife didn't have year long road access until 2012. Iqaluit doesn't have a seaport and the airport is in need of a major upgrade.
Russia has railway lines running all the way to there Arctic. They have built seaports and roads. As in Alaska, this investment in infrastructure has enabled industry to begin doing business in the area.
The problem in Canada is we want industry to build the infrastructure themselves but then we also tie them up in our regulatory quagmire. Trans-Mountain Pipeline being the latest example of how great a place Canada is to do business in. :
Not to mention a lot of new exploration is done by junior companies looking to make a discovery and sell to a major player who can develop it further. Glencore is certainly not going to pay for a road, they are going to wait for the government to build one and then invest but not before.
Look at the Roman Empire, roads and seaports signal intent. We aren't building any so we clearly have none.
Just look at Alaska which is right next to the Yukon. Oil industry is everywhere there, Anchorage is a big city and there is a Division of soldiers there.
Meanwhile, Yellowknife didn't have year long road access until 2012. Iqaluit doesn't have a seaport and the airport is in need of a major upgrade.
Russia has railway lines running all the way to there Arctic. They have built seaports and roads. As in Alaska, this investment in infrastructure has enabled industry to begin doing business in the area.
The problem in Canada is we want industry to build the infrastructure themselves but then we also tie them up in our regulatory quagmire. Trans-Mountain Pipeline being the latest example of how great a place Canada is to do business in. :
Not to mention a lot of new exploration is done by junior companies looking to make a discovery and sell to a major player who can develop it further. Glencore is certainly not going to pay for a road, they are going to wait for the government to build one and then invest but not before.
Look at the Roman Empire, roads and seaports signal intent. We aren't building any so we clearly have none.
Eye In The Sky
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An article from a year ago on arctic resources. Yellow text highlights mine.
Article Link
Battle for Arctic resources heats up as ice recedes
LANCASTER SOUND, Nunavut – From a distance, the northern shores of Baffin Island in the Arctic appear barren — a craggy world of snow-capped peaks and glaciers surrounded by a sea of floating ice even in the midst of summer.
Yet beneath the forbidding surface of the world’s fifth largest island lies a vast treasure in the shape of an exceptionally pure strain of iron ore. The Baffinland mine, part-owned by a local company and ArcelorMittal, one of the world’s biggest steel producers, is believed to hold enough ore to feed smelters for decades.
As climate change pushes the cold and ice a little farther north each year, it is spurring talk of a gold rush for the Arctic’s abundant natural resources, prized shipping routes and business opportunities in tourism and fishing. The Arctic, including the fabled Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific, is among the last regions on earth to remain largely unexplored. In April, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reverse Obama-era restrictions on oil drilling.
Yet industry experts, researchers and veterans of the Far North say there remain many obstacles to reaping the riches once blocked by the ice. Conservationists also oppose the large-scale extraction of Arctic resources, fearing that the fragile environment will be irreparably harmed.
The Associated Press took a first-hand look at the Arctic on a month-long, 10,000-kilometre (6,200-mile) journey aboard the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica, along with researchers specializing in Arctic development. The journey was in part an effort to promote the ship to potential clients in North America as an “icebreaker for hire.”
“As the world demand for raw materials is ever increasing, and (with) a realization that a large part of the unexplored deposits are in the Arctic, there is a natural shift to focus on that area,” said Mads Boye Peterson, head of Denmark’s Nordic Bulk Carriers Shipping.
Peterson’s company sent a freighter through the Northwest Passage four years ago to demonstrate the feasibility of using the route to haul cargo during the summer months, when melting sea ice opens up these frigid waters. But he also noted that rising temperatures make operations more difficult because moving floes are less predictable than unbroken sheets of ice.
The Arctic’s hidden resources
The Arctic stretches from the North Pole to roughly the 66th parallel north, an area of about 20 million square kilometres (almost 8 million square miles) of freezing seas and tree-less lands.
The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated that up to 30 per cent of the world’s undiscovered gas and 13 per cent of oil waiting to be found are inside the Arctic Circle. Even if only a fraction of these fossil fuels are tapped they could be worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Coal, diamonds, uranium, phosphate, nickel, platinum and other precious minerals also slumber beneath the icy surface of the Arctic, according to Morten Smelror, director of the Geological Survey of Norway. And the growing need for sophisticated batteries to power electric cars and handheld devices likely will drive demand for rare earth elements, lithium and cobalt found in significant amounts in the Arctic regions of Russia, the Nordic countries and Greenland, he said.
Apart from natural resources, the geography of the Arctic also opens up new opportunities. Sailing through the Northwest Passage could potentially cut the distance from East Asia to Western Europe by more than 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles), compared with the traditional route through the Panama Canal, offering huge fuel savings for shipping companies.
It’s a far cry from the Cold War, when the only ships crisscrossing the frigid straits were nuclear submarines patrolling the frontier between East and West. The new battle for the Arctic and its resources is being fought by geologists and legions of lawyers.
Greenland, an autonomous region of Denmark, has staked its claim to the Lomonosov Ridge — a massive underwater feature jutting hundreds of miles beneath the Arctic Sea that would greatly extend Greenland’s sea bed continental shelf for possible use in future undersea mining. Russia contests the claim — one of several disputes before the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.
Moscow boldly underlined its claim to a vast part of the Arctic Ocean floor 10 years ago by planting an underwater flag at the North Pole. Russia has also been expanding infrastructure along its northern coast, partly to exploit reserves of natural gas in the region.
Canada, meanwhile, contends that the waters of the Arctic archipelago — an area about twice the size of Texas — are its internal waters. To support its claim, Canada has been stepping up its activities in the region, including creating a new Arctic research centre and developing autonomous submarines to improve underwater charts. It has also been conducting search and rescue exercises in anticipation of growing ship traffic in the Northwest Passage.
Preparations for Nordica’s journey included registering with Canadian authorities, who closely monitor traffic in the Northwest Passage to ensure compliance with environmental rules. Fewer than 500 ships have sailed through the passage since the first transit in 1906.
Canada’s claim to the waters of the Arctic archipelago is contested by the United States, mainly due to concerns that it could set a precedent other, less friendly nations might follow.
In general, the United States is taking a back seat for now. Washington has yet to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea that would regulate territorial disputes, due to concerns among some senators that submitting to international treaties would impinge on U.S. sovereignty.
Despite competing claims and tough talk to home audiences, Arctic nations are co-operating well with each other, said Rachael Lorna Johnstone, a professor of law at the University of Akureyri in Iceland.
Some smaller firms are pressing ahead with business in the Arctic. The Alaska-based company Quintillion is laying a fiber optic cable through the Northwest Passage to provide high-speed Internet traffic to local communities. It would also establish an additional link between London and Tokyo — where two of the world’s main stock markets are located.
The growth in adventure tourism and the lengthening summer season have produced a surge of traffic over the past decade. Last year, the cruise ship Crystal Serenity with 500 crew and 1,100 passengers paying at least $22,000 each for a four-week journey sailed through the passage.
Such tours require years of planning and the approval of almost 30 Canadian agencies, including the authorities in the indigenous territory of Nunavut. Part of the revenue goes to local communities whose hunting grounds and travel routes might be disrupted by large vessels.
“It basically opens up so much ice that we can’t even use the ice anymore, and we have to go by land where it was just right across before,” said Maatiusi Manning.
The 33-year-old Inuk from Baffin Island’s Cape Dorset was on board the Nordica, gaining ‘ship time’ as part of his training to work on a factory fishing ship.
Developing the local fishing industry is one way to solve the region’s chronic lack of jobs, now further threatened by the effects of climate change. “Money-wise it’s great,” Manning said of the fishery job he hopes to land when his training is completed. “It’s going to help a lot of families.”
The environmental group Greenpeace said it was important to ensure the Inuit control their own fisheries, rather than let outside corporations with no link to the Arctic harvest its rich waters.
Climate change is even opening new avenues in agriculture. Mette Bendixen, a climate researcher at the University of Copenhagen, projects that global warming will continue into the 21st century, extending the growing season by two months.
“Not many people know that potatoes, strawberries are grown in southern Greenland,” he said.
Challenges remain
Despite its promise, there are several challenges holding back the development of parts of the Arctic and the use of its resources.
The search for fossil fuels above North America has slowed in recent years. One reason is low oil prices, which along with public pressure have made the Arctic shortcut less attractive to shipping firms. The drop in prices has hit Alaska’s budget hard, because it relies heavily on oil and gas revenue.
While Russia and Norway are pressing ahead with new oil and gas projects along their coastlines, the seas off Alaska and northern Canada are much less accessible and any major spill would be difficult and costly to contain.
Shell relinquished most of its federal offshore leases in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea last year, after pouring billions of dollars into exploration efforts over the past decade. Former Shell leases in the neighbouring Beaufort Sea have been taken over by an Alaska Native-owned company.
“There are a lot of hydrocarbons in the Arctic, but for them to be economically viable the cost per barrel has to be higher,” said David Barber, an expert on the Arctic environment at the University of Manitoba. “Of course it will go higher, and thus the Arctic issue will come to the foreground again.”
The rugged nature of the Arctic also slows development. Only 10 per cent of the Northwest Passage is surveyed to the highest modern standards, meaning uncharted shallows could pose a serious risk to shipping. Ocean currents are predicted to push polar pack ice into the passage for decades, limiting the route to sturdy vessels with experienced navigators — and keeping insurance costs high.
“Think about a high mountain pass that is closed for half the year, has no gas stations, convenience stores or repair facilities,” said Andrew Kinsey, a senior marine risk consultant at insurance giant Allianz. “Is this the route that you want to use for your daily commute?”
Environmental concerns and a growing acceptance of the rights of the region’s indigenous population also have held back some plans for Arctic exploration.
As the Nordica made its way through the Franklin Strait, giant ripples indicated a pod of whales moving ahead of the ship — a mass of speckled narwhals occasionally breaking the water along the edge of the ice. It wasn’t clear whether the narwhals had spotted the ship, but they would have heard its growl as it crashed through piles of sea ice, a sound unlike any other in this remote corner of the Northwest Passage.
Cargo hauls to the Baffinland iron ore mine are already restricted to August to mid-October, so as not to disrupt the Inuit’s ability to cross the ice to hunt, fish or trade. Such rules recognize the growing assertiveness of the region’s original inhabitants for a share of its riches, including the protection of local hunting grounds for seals and walruses.
Manning, the trainee fisherman, hopes the opportunities his children gain from Arctic development will outweigh the disadvantages.
Daria Gritsenko, a public policy researcher travelling on board the icebreaker Nordica, cautioned that any economic excitement about global warming opening up the Arctic needs to be tempered by an understanding of the risks. Melting permafrost already poses a problem for Russia’s Arctic infrastructure, from ports to pipelines, from roads to residential buildings.
“We need to rethink how we build things in the Arctic,” said Gritsenko, who is based at the University of Helsinki. “Even if we develop a tremendous system of Arctic ports, how would the goods get there? That’s the irony of climate change.”
Gritsenko said there’s likely no single answer to the multitude of problems ahead, including the overarching question of how a global economy that fostered climate change can be adapted to tackle it.
“We need new ideas,” she said. “We need more alternatives.”
Article Link
Battle for Arctic resources heats up as ice recedes
LANCASTER SOUND, Nunavut – From a distance, the northern shores of Baffin Island in the Arctic appear barren — a craggy world of snow-capped peaks and glaciers surrounded by a sea of floating ice even in the midst of summer.
Yet beneath the forbidding surface of the world’s fifth largest island lies a vast treasure in the shape of an exceptionally pure strain of iron ore. The Baffinland mine, part-owned by a local company and ArcelorMittal, one of the world’s biggest steel producers, is believed to hold enough ore to feed smelters for decades.
As climate change pushes the cold and ice a little farther north each year, it is spurring talk of a gold rush for the Arctic’s abundant natural resources, prized shipping routes and business opportunities in tourism and fishing. The Arctic, including the fabled Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific, is among the last regions on earth to remain largely unexplored. In April, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reverse Obama-era restrictions on oil drilling.
Yet industry experts, researchers and veterans of the Far North say there remain many obstacles to reaping the riches once blocked by the ice. Conservationists also oppose the large-scale extraction of Arctic resources, fearing that the fragile environment will be irreparably harmed.
The Associated Press took a first-hand look at the Arctic on a month-long, 10,000-kilometre (6,200-mile) journey aboard the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica, along with researchers specializing in Arctic development. The journey was in part an effort to promote the ship to potential clients in North America as an “icebreaker for hire.”
“As the world demand for raw materials is ever increasing, and (with) a realization that a large part of the unexplored deposits are in the Arctic, there is a natural shift to focus on that area,” said Mads Boye Peterson, head of Denmark’s Nordic Bulk Carriers Shipping.
Peterson’s company sent a freighter through the Northwest Passage four years ago to demonstrate the feasibility of using the route to haul cargo during the summer months, when melting sea ice opens up these frigid waters. But he also noted that rising temperatures make operations more difficult because moving floes are less predictable than unbroken sheets of ice.
The Arctic’s hidden resources
The Arctic stretches from the North Pole to roughly the 66th parallel north, an area of about 20 million square kilometres (almost 8 million square miles) of freezing seas and tree-less lands.
The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated that up to 30 per cent of the world’s undiscovered gas and 13 per cent of oil waiting to be found are inside the Arctic Circle. Even if only a fraction of these fossil fuels are tapped they could be worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Coal, diamonds, uranium, phosphate, nickel, platinum and other precious minerals also slumber beneath the icy surface of the Arctic, according to Morten Smelror, director of the Geological Survey of Norway. And the growing need for sophisticated batteries to power electric cars and handheld devices likely will drive demand for rare earth elements, lithium and cobalt found in significant amounts in the Arctic regions of Russia, the Nordic countries and Greenland, he said.
Apart from natural resources, the geography of the Arctic also opens up new opportunities. Sailing through the Northwest Passage could potentially cut the distance from East Asia to Western Europe by more than 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles), compared with the traditional route through the Panama Canal, offering huge fuel savings for shipping companies.
It’s a far cry from the Cold War, when the only ships crisscrossing the frigid straits were nuclear submarines patrolling the frontier between East and West. The new battle for the Arctic and its resources is being fought by geologists and legions of lawyers.
Greenland, an autonomous region of Denmark, has staked its claim to the Lomonosov Ridge — a massive underwater feature jutting hundreds of miles beneath the Arctic Sea that would greatly extend Greenland’s sea bed continental shelf for possible use in future undersea mining. Russia contests the claim — one of several disputes before the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.
Moscow boldly underlined its claim to a vast part of the Arctic Ocean floor 10 years ago by planting an underwater flag at the North Pole. Russia has also been expanding infrastructure along its northern coast, partly to exploit reserves of natural gas in the region.
Canada, meanwhile, contends that the waters of the Arctic archipelago — an area about twice the size of Texas — are its internal waters. To support its claim, Canada has been stepping up its activities in the region, including creating a new Arctic research centre and developing autonomous submarines to improve underwater charts. It has also been conducting search and rescue exercises in anticipation of growing ship traffic in the Northwest Passage.
Preparations for Nordica’s journey included registering with Canadian authorities, who closely monitor traffic in the Northwest Passage to ensure compliance with environmental rules. Fewer than 500 ships have sailed through the passage since the first transit in 1906.
Canada’s claim to the waters of the Arctic archipelago is contested by the United States, mainly due to concerns that it could set a precedent other, less friendly nations might follow.
In general, the United States is taking a back seat for now. Washington has yet to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea that would regulate territorial disputes, due to concerns among some senators that submitting to international treaties would impinge on U.S. sovereignty.
Despite competing claims and tough talk to home audiences, Arctic nations are co-operating well with each other, said Rachael Lorna Johnstone, a professor of law at the University of Akureyri in Iceland.
Some smaller firms are pressing ahead with business in the Arctic. The Alaska-based company Quintillion is laying a fiber optic cable through the Northwest Passage to provide high-speed Internet traffic to local communities. It would also establish an additional link between London and Tokyo — where two of the world’s main stock markets are located.
The growth in adventure tourism and the lengthening summer season have produced a surge of traffic over the past decade. Last year, the cruise ship Crystal Serenity with 500 crew and 1,100 passengers paying at least $22,000 each for a four-week journey sailed through the passage.
Such tours require years of planning and the approval of almost 30 Canadian agencies, including the authorities in the indigenous territory of Nunavut. Part of the revenue goes to local communities whose hunting grounds and travel routes might be disrupted by large vessels.
“It basically opens up so much ice that we can’t even use the ice anymore, and we have to go by land where it was just right across before,” said Maatiusi Manning.
The 33-year-old Inuk from Baffin Island’s Cape Dorset was on board the Nordica, gaining ‘ship time’ as part of his training to work on a factory fishing ship.
Developing the local fishing industry is one way to solve the region’s chronic lack of jobs, now further threatened by the effects of climate change. “Money-wise it’s great,” Manning said of the fishery job he hopes to land when his training is completed. “It’s going to help a lot of families.”
The environmental group Greenpeace said it was important to ensure the Inuit control their own fisheries, rather than let outside corporations with no link to the Arctic harvest its rich waters.
Climate change is even opening new avenues in agriculture. Mette Bendixen, a climate researcher at the University of Copenhagen, projects that global warming will continue into the 21st century, extending the growing season by two months.
“Not many people know that potatoes, strawberries are grown in southern Greenland,” he said.
Challenges remain
Despite its promise, there are several challenges holding back the development of parts of the Arctic and the use of its resources.
The search for fossil fuels above North America has slowed in recent years. One reason is low oil prices, which along with public pressure have made the Arctic shortcut less attractive to shipping firms. The drop in prices has hit Alaska’s budget hard, because it relies heavily on oil and gas revenue.
While Russia and Norway are pressing ahead with new oil and gas projects along their coastlines, the seas off Alaska and northern Canada are much less accessible and any major spill would be difficult and costly to contain.
Shell relinquished most of its federal offshore leases in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea last year, after pouring billions of dollars into exploration efforts over the past decade. Former Shell leases in the neighbouring Beaufort Sea have been taken over by an Alaska Native-owned company.
“There are a lot of hydrocarbons in the Arctic, but for them to be economically viable the cost per barrel has to be higher,” said David Barber, an expert on the Arctic environment at the University of Manitoba. “Of course it will go higher, and thus the Arctic issue will come to the foreground again.”
The rugged nature of the Arctic also slows development. Only 10 per cent of the Northwest Passage is surveyed to the highest modern standards, meaning uncharted shallows could pose a serious risk to shipping. Ocean currents are predicted to push polar pack ice into the passage for decades, limiting the route to sturdy vessels with experienced navigators — and keeping insurance costs high.
“Think about a high mountain pass that is closed for half the year, has no gas stations, convenience stores or repair facilities,” said Andrew Kinsey, a senior marine risk consultant at insurance giant Allianz. “Is this the route that you want to use for your daily commute?”
Environmental concerns and a growing acceptance of the rights of the region’s indigenous population also have held back some plans for Arctic exploration.
As the Nordica made its way through the Franklin Strait, giant ripples indicated a pod of whales moving ahead of the ship — a mass of speckled narwhals occasionally breaking the water along the edge of the ice. It wasn’t clear whether the narwhals had spotted the ship, but they would have heard its growl as it crashed through piles of sea ice, a sound unlike any other in this remote corner of the Northwest Passage.
Cargo hauls to the Baffinland iron ore mine are already restricted to August to mid-October, so as not to disrupt the Inuit’s ability to cross the ice to hunt, fish or trade. Such rules recognize the growing assertiveness of the region’s original inhabitants for a share of its riches, including the protection of local hunting grounds for seals and walruses.
Manning, the trainee fisherman, hopes the opportunities his children gain from Arctic development will outweigh the disadvantages.
Daria Gritsenko, a public policy researcher travelling on board the icebreaker Nordica, cautioned that any economic excitement about global warming opening up the Arctic needs to be tempered by an understanding of the risks. Melting permafrost already poses a problem for Russia’s Arctic infrastructure, from ports to pipelines, from roads to residential buildings.
“We need to rethink how we build things in the Arctic,” said Gritsenko, who is based at the University of Helsinki. “Even if we develop a tremendous system of Arctic ports, how would the goods get there? That’s the irony of climate change.”
Gritsenko said there’s likely no single answer to the multitude of problems ahead, including the overarching question of how a global economy that fostered climate change can be adapted to tackle it.
“We need new ideas,” she said. “We need more alternatives.”
Eye In The Sky
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Humphrey Bogart said:
Steak night at the Legion is pretty good though! ;D
Colin Parkinson
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The easiest and quickest thing we can do is build proper harbours at the major towns along the coast. Add to them over the years so there is a way to remove the boats for the winter, storage for government boats. Each proper harbour gets a CCG aux. unit and boat, along with an RCMP boat. At the same time start upgrading airports and navigation aids both Marine and Air. Look where additional airfields can be built. National plan for which roads to support, either all new roads or additions/upgrades to existing roads. Complete the railine to the Yukon, then negotiate pushing it into Alaska proper.
Blackadder1916
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Humphrey Bogart said:
Well, let's look at Alaska. Investment and infrastructure. What was the trigger to get a road link to the
Canada has developed northward in the same manner as all other countries. It's just that we don't have to go very far North to start developing remote areas.
*(Edited to correct Canadian distance - damn km vice miles)
Colin Parkinson
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I was utterly shocked a while ago when discussing similar at what a poor job Ontario has done developing Northward compared to other provinces.
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Colin P said:
Ontario is an "east west" province, whereas all other provinces west of her (and Quebec) are "north south" ones. All of its resources and people naturally developed along the Great Lakes, the rivers connected to them and arguably the richest farmland in Canada which are in an east west orientation. North is the Canadian shield which aside from good mining, and lumber has limited natural resources to create a major population centres. It's natural that people settled along the lakes and developed a larger society there, mainly because of farmland. The "north south" orientation of the provinces west of Ontario are because all the major population centres grew up originally around Hudson Bay Company settlements, using Hudson Bay and rivers connected with it to transport goods and people. Until the railway came of course. But by then a lot of these places were established and as we know big cities that are diverse economically just keep getting bigger and attracting more people.
As much as we might complain and rant, Canada is shaped by her geography far more than her government. Natural settlement and movement of people happens at the travel, farming and resource points, where industry and economies create wealth. Not frozen backwaters where resource extraction is difficult, transportation is almost impossible and farming non-existent.
The reason why Alaska is so developed vice the Canadian arctic is twofold. First is her relatively mild climate allowing for the resource extraction of her two "gold rush" resources, oil and gold respectively. Secondly, it's easy to transport goods to and from Alaska by ship. Not so much the Yukon. Yes, development of Alaska was heavily influenced by first WW2 and secondly the Cold War, but once again her geography is why she was important. Not any overriding better US government policy. The Canadian Territories are a backwater, not important geopolitically, not important resource wise, and difficult to develop. Hence the difference.
Colin Parkinson
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Having worked as a regulatory in the resource sector, the real issue is infrastructure. Once government builds infrastructure, resource and other development opportunities increase significantly. Canada was stitched together by big projects that didn't make economic sense in the beginning. What is needed is a big picture of where it makes some sense to go and there is potential. The Ring of Fire is going to need electricity and the ability to move bulk products efficiently. That infrastructure is going to also connect numerous communities for the first time bring opportunities and challenges. The Feds need to help with projects that further the national interests, which among other things is a North-South connections.
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Underway said:
Using this logic, we should never have built a railroad across the country and no government should ever invest in any infrastructure in remote areas as its "unnatural". There are places in the World that are as difficult as the most remote regions in Canada to access and yet that development is occurring. Government totally has the ability to influence the natural settlement of people along with the development of industry. Every Empire in history has been built off of the quest for riches and wealth in previously undiscovered locales. Gold in the New World was the impetus for the strengthening of the Spanish Empire and the Spanish made considerable investments getting that gold. Likewise, European Powers spent large sums colonizing and exploiting Africa. The British even tried building a railway from Cape Town to Cairo and would have succeeded had the Great Depression not affected the economics of the final piece of the project.
What's my point? Governments can and do influence development. Canada hasn't developed its North or its immense resource wealth at its disposal, the real question isn't why we have not? It is: should we?
My opinion is that Canada is essentially a Satrapy of the United States and while there is an underlying Anti-Americanism that exists within Canada, we are 100% focused on looking South as opposed to North. The American tail always wags the Canadian dog.
daftandbarmy
Army.ca Fossil
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Humphrey Bogart said:
That is an awesome word. I've never heard of it before, nor seen used in a sentence. Thanks!
sa·trap·y
/ˈsātrəpē,ˈsa-/
noun
noun: satrapy; plural noun: satrapies
a province governed by a satrap.
Satraps were the governors of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires. The word satrap is also often used metaphorically in modern literature to refer to world leaders or governors who are heavily influenced by larger world superpowers or hegemonies and act as their surrogates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satrap
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daftandbarmy said:
A fancy way of saying Client State ;D
