Alaskan Arctic Summit on shipping and ports.

• Author: Goforth, J. Pennelope
• Position: ARCTIC

"We used to be the back door of America and now we're the front door [to the Arctic]," announced Governor Bill Walker at this year's annual all-things Alaskan Arctic Summit, focused on shipping and ports. He clearly articulated the state of Alaska's vision for a vibrant Arctic economy that is environmentally safe and secure with the full participation of local residents.

Anyone who hasn't been paying attention may not know that Alaska is in the early days of Arctic Fever. Those who have been paying attention know this snowball has left the summit and is gathering speed and size as it avalanches down the North Slope to the Arctic Sea. This year the United States takes a turn at chairing the global Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum of the eight Arctic nations: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States. As President of Iceland, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson quipped, "Washington is now coming to Alaska!"

This is the fifth summit organized by Alice Rogoff, publisher of the Alaska Dispatch News and Mead Treadwell, president of Pt Capital and former Alaska Lieutenant Governor and former Chair of the Arctic Research Commission, to promote discussions on the changing Arctic. Joined by government officials, resource developers, coastal community leaders, maritime interests, and global financiers, these summits represent Alaska dreams and aspirations of a sustainably developed Arctic region. Event sponsors included home grown business interests such as Pt Capital, the Port of Nome, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks along with global companies Edison Chouest Offshore, Royal Dutch Shell, and Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company. But the sponsor who stole the show turned out to be Grimsson. The two day event was held at the Hotel Captain Cook August 23-25.

While the topics of what Arctic development means to the people of the Arctic and the state of Alaska are not new--deep water ports, vessel transit routes, icebreakers, food security, subsistence hunting, oil spill response, environmental concerns, search and rescue capacity, and local input--the conversations crystallized around a surprising number of proactive strategies already on a fast track to fruition.

Speaking of the monumental tasks of building the wherewithal for successful development in the harsh Arctic region, Walker said, "We don't have problems, we have opportunities." Two of those seemingly insurmountable opportunities he presented were the cost of energy and the development of infrastructure to move the resources out of Arctic Alaska into the world market. He cited the highly successful private/public partnership that created the Red Dog Mine. The state took on the costs of developing and building the road from the mine area to the tideland and the Native regional corporation NANA in partnership with Teck Resources Limited, a diversified mining and metals company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, developing NANA's mineral resource into the largest zinc mine in the world.

Many of the names and faces were familiar on the Arctic horizon of the past five years. But the summit was characterized by collaboration of talking and listening, at any one time, those who expounded on the stage were likely to have been sitting in the audience the previous session. It seemed more an organized sharing of ideas, strategies, and information than the traditional lecture with a question and answer period following.

Maritime Shipping Issues

As the polar ice pack melts at an increasing rate, new channels of passage appear across the Arctic region far in advance of scientific modeling. Fluctuating levels of sea ice have allowed for increasing amounts of vessels in Alaska's Arctic waters during the short summer season. These are primarily due to oil and gas related exploration such as drill rigs, supply vessels, tugs, and icebreakers. Significant numbers of research vessels from many different countries cruise these waters along with ships...