AMUNDSEN GULF, N.W.T. -- As a bright, red ship perched in a patch of snow-white sea ice, the Coast Guard icebreaker Amundsen stands out in the Arctic like a visual embodiment of the Canadian flag.
The medium-duty icebreaker's mission may be entirely scientific, but there's no denying its presence in the Amundsen Gulf, just south of remote Banks Island, says a lot about Canada's desire to assert its sovereignty over its northern frontier.
Arctic ice through a bow porthole aboard the Amundsen. The ship isn’t built to punch through the thickest ice.
The Amundsen is the only Canadian ship spending the winter in an Arctic basin increasingly eyed by other nations interested in exploring new shipping lanes, expanding oil and gas claims or simply flexing their naval muscle.
During the past year alone, Russia has planted a flag on the ocean bed beneath the North Pole, Denmark began mapping out an underwater ridge attached to Greenland and China drew up plans to build icebreaking oil tankers.
Even the United States, Canada's closest military ally and trading partner, has made noises about treating an ice-free Northwest Passage as an "international" shipping shortcut between Europe and Asia.
With the Arctic basin in danger of losing all its summer sea ice sometime in the next five to 20 years -- a near certainty, according to University of Manitoba climatologist David Barber -- the prospect of an international naval free-for-all in the high Arctic is a serious concern for Ottawa.
In response, the Conservative government has pledged to dredge a deep-water port at Nanisivik on Baffin Island, build an army training centre at Resolute Bay and buy six or eight new frigates to patrol Arctic waters during the summer.
Amundsen’s captain, Stéphane Julien, checks ice from ship’s helicopter.
But Canada still won't have the ability to cruise around the Arctic all year the way the Russians can with nuclear-powered icebreakers such as the Yamal, a 75,000-horsepower, 150-metre behemoth that can plow through a polar ice pack as easily as a knife cuts through soft butter.
If such concerns weigh on the mind of the Amundsen's captain, he is not eager to discuss them. His ship may be the only Canadian vessel in the Arctic, but all he professes to care about is the climate-change science being conducted by 27 researchers on board.
"I don't think about these things. I focus on what I have to do," says Capt. Stéphane Julien, a charismatic and intense veteran of the Arctic, whose job is to manoeuvre the Amundsen into patches of ice most suitable for scientific research.
His 14,000-horsepower, 98-metre ship is not built to withstand conditions on the open Arctic, where the winter sea ice can easily be three or four metres thick.
But the diesel-electric vessel does just fine in the Amundsen Gulf, using what Julien calls "finesse instead of brute force" to navigate the metre-thick ice that freezes up around patches of open ocean called flaw leads.
Even mention the Yamal -- which has 50 berths for cruise-ship passengers willing to pay upwards of US$22,000 to visit the North Pole -- and the plucky Canadian captain rolls his eyes.
"Oh, sure, you can say, 'I'm going to go wherever I want, whenever I want,' but I wouldn't trade this ship for any other," he says, noting his ship is serving a vital role by making it possible for scientists from across the globe to study the Arctic.
"I'm proud of what we've accomplished and we're becoming known around the world."
And when the current year-long mission in the Arctic is over, there's a chance his ship could be headed for the Antarctic Ocean, he says.
Along with the Amundsen, the Canadian Coast Guard has 21 icebreakers, including two heavier-duty ships, the 120-metre Louis S. St-Laurent and the smaller Terry Fox.
When the U of M's David Barber originally proposed a year-long scientific mission in the Arctic, the Canadian Coast Guard originally wanted the researchers to voyage on the Louis. It took strong lobbying to use the Amundsen, a once-decommissioned vessel retrofitted for scientific use in 2003 to the tune of $27 million.
The researchers who work on the ship adore her. But there remain many who dream about cruising the open Arctic in a polar-class icebreaker that could rival Russia's might.
Frigates that can patrol an ice-free Northwest Passage are nice, but Arctic enthusiasts deride them as "slushbreakers" because they can't operate during the winter.
Gary Stern, the chief scientist aboard the Amundsen, is among those who uses the term.
"Even if the summer sea ice disappears," he says, "there will always be ice in the Arctic during the winter."
Right now, Russia possesses the most powerful and expensive icebreakers in the world, with the United States not far behind.
The price tag for Canada to follow suit would be immense -- although it could be argued the cost of the potential loss of its Arctic sovereignty would be even greater.
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