Blazing an Arctic trail

Alaska Journal of Commerce

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — For centuries, explorers have dreamed of sailing through Arctic passages as a shortcut between Europe and Asia.

The dream of navigating has never been closer to reality, says Lorna Knaus, chief executive of Pacific Rim Board of Trades.

Knaus said global warming and instability in Panama, which took over control of the canal from the United States in 1999, will prompt or require the use of Arctic shipping routes.

The 69-year-old Anchorage business consultant said she believes the routes will become viable in her lifetime, and Alaska and the rest of the world must begin thinking about infrastructure that would support the shipping routes.

The Northwest Passage winds through Canada’s Arctic archipelago and along the northern coast of Alaska between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The Northeast Passage goes around the top of the Arctic coasts of Norway and Russia.

Knaus believes any coastal country along the routes will benefit tremendously by adding such things as port facilities and warehouses to accommodate the thousands of ships that would transit offshore. She believes Alaska could go as far as purchasing a state-owned icebreaker to help keep the waters open.

"I’m trying to get people to consider our future," Knaus said. "The weather is changing, and we have the technology now to do this."

She admits that her challenge of focusing on the Arctic routes generally has been met with a cool reception. But some Arctic experts believe Knaus’ ideas have at least some merit.

Lawson Brigham, deputy executive director of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission in Alexandria, Va., said Knaus is "on the mark."

"It sounds like she’s a visionary and taking a holistic view of our changing planet," said Brigham, who holds a doctorate in oceanography from Cambridge University in England and is considered an expert in Arctic navigation and sea ice. He is a former U.S. Coast Guard captain who commanded some of the service’s icebreaking cutters.

Brigham said that while scientists argue over what is causing global warming, they do agree that rising world temperatures have caused the permanent ice cap over the North Pole to shrink in thickness by about 43 percent. That, he said, may allow the more popular Northwest Passage to become navigable in the summer months in a few years, or even longer by mid-century or earlier.

"A few years ago, no one would have dreamed of seeing a ship in the middle of the Arctic," Brigham said. "Since 1987 there have been 48 ships through or deep into the Arctic, most of them in the summer months."

Ships traveling from Europe to the Far East via the Panama Canal must travel about 14,500 miles. The Northwest Passage cuts the distance to just more than 9,000 miles.

It won’t be ice stopping ships, but economics or environmentalists, he said.

"The potential impacts to indigenous fishing grounds and the noise of the ships breaking ice would be great," Brigham said. He also said an oil spill in the Arctic would likely devastate the fragile ecosystem. "All you have to do is look at the Exxon Valdez," Brigham said.

Also few of the world’s ships are built strong enough to handle even a watery Arctic passage, because of icebergs, he said. Building ships with greater structural strength to handle icebergs would mean huge capital costs and additional fuel.

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