Thaw Makes Arctic Trips Riskier

“THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE -- Climate change is melting sea ice at a quickening pace, and in the process rekindling dreams that have beguiled seafarers for centuries: finding an alternative shipping route to Asia around the North Pole.

 

Commercial shippers hope to establish an express shipping lane to save time and money. Western governments seek to deepen their presence in the Arctic to catch up with Russia. Tourists and researchers are drawn to one of the least explored regions on earth.

 

But in a paradox of global warming, thawing ice isn't making Arctic waters easier to navigate. It makes them more dangerous.

 

Driving the growth in marine traffic is a widespread idea that the Northwest Passage -- a labyrinthine network of straits and channels connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic -- will soon become a sustainable freight thoroughfare. The West, lagging behind Russia in the Arctic, has commercial and strategic interests in making that happen.

 

It won't anytime soon.

 

Ice has shaped geopolitics for centuries. It has thwarted explorers and stifled merchants' ambitions. Now, Arctic sea ice overall is declining. But as temperatures rise, icebergs and thick chunks of centuries-old ice are released into open water, turning shipping straits into minefields. Adding to the risks, less ice cover invites higher waves. Still, commercial pressures motivate shippers to push boundaries, raising the risk of accidents, oil spills or getting stuck in ice.

 

"It's hazardous work," said Capt. Donald Gibson, who in August and September let a Wall Street Journal reporter sail on the 450-foot Canadian-flagged cargo ship MV Nunalik for three weeks through the Canadian Arctic. "You're always working at the limits of the equipment and the people."

 

Commercial transits through the Northwest Passage hit a record high in 2023 with 13 voyages, according to a tally by the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge.

 

Traversing the Northwest Passage would save shippers an estimated two weeks compared with the Panama Canal.

 

Yet, only six commercial cargo vessels completed the full Northwest Passage this year. One of them, the Dutch-flagged Thamesborg, ran aground in the Franklin Strait, where it got stuck for over a month. It was only barely refloated by rescue vessels before new ice formed, which would have trapped it over winter.

 

One night around midnight, shortly after the Nunalik entered the Northwest Passage, a thick fog had suddenly amassed, reducing visibility to less than two ship lengths. The vessel was surrounded on all sides by small islands of ice capable of puncturing the hull and couldn't move for hours.

 

Once the Nunalik started moving, it sailed at a speed of two knots, a leisurely walking pace, nudging ice aside with a deep crunch that sent vibrations through the entire vessel.

 

The Nunalik is part of a small fleet owned by Canadian shipping company NEAS, one of a handful of carriers operating in this part of the Arctic. The vessel is ice-strengthened to navigate certain types and concentrations of ice, but it isn't an icebreaker.

 

The Nunalik's 20-man crew lived in close quarters, many sharing cabins.

 

One evening, ominous, low-lying tube-shaped clouds known as arcus formed, and whitecaps appeared in the waves. Both were signs of a storm brewing. The ship started rolling. Cups and cutlery skated across the table in the mess. At night, the crew trained a searchlight across the dark waters to look for growlers -- low-floating chunks of ice big enough to puncture a ship.

 

The ship carried about 4,000 tons of supplies to isolated Inuit communities along the coast. It undertakes three journeys of approximately five weeks each during the short window where Arctic sealifts are possible. Those windows are, in fact, getting shorter.

 

Even though sea ice in the Canadian Arctic has shrunk by 5% to 20% a decade since the late 1960s, the length of the shipping season in the Northwest Passage has decreased, according to researchers from the University of Ottawa and Environment and Climate Change Canada, a government agency.

 

The main obstacle is old ice, which has survived at least one summer, sometimes centuries. Over time, this so-called multiyear ice accumulates to several yards' thickness, loses much of its salt content and becomes rock-hard. As temperatures rise, multiyear ice in the northern Arctic is released southward, where it creates chokepoints in the Northwest Passage.

 

One of the last stops on the Nunalik's September voyage was Resolute Bay, a hamlet in the northern part of the Northwest Passage. When the ship arrived, ice had concentrated around the bay and was being pushed toward shore by wind. What should have been a one-day job ended up taking a week, as the ship struggled to approach shore.

 

Adding to the dangers, an increasingly open Arctic Ocean invites extreme waves.

 

Eventually, the Nunalik unloaded its cargo, supplying Inuit communities with goods to tide them over until next year. On the way back south, it spent four days unloading cargo from the Thamesborg, the vessel grounded in the Franklin Strait, to help refloat it before the onset of new ice.

 

Then it went back to its home port to reload for its third and final voyage of the year.” [1]

 

1. World News: Thaw Makes Arctic Trips Riskier. Sune Engel Rasmussen.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 04 Dec 2025: A9.