Page 57: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (May 2000)

Canada

Icy Wasteland Or Shipping Utopia?

Controversy between the U.S. and

Canada regarding the rights to the

Northwest Passage became a frontburn- er item recently, based on the deploy- ment by the U.S. of an icebreaker on a rare trip through Canada's disputed Arc- tic waters.

The U.S. Coast Guard's new polar ice- breaker Healy is scheduled to carry out a series of experiments in the Arctic ice before sailing through the passage in

June and July. In discussing the matter,

Canadian officials stress that permission was granted for the trip, and that the country was not relinquishing its claim to all the waters that fall within its boundaries.

These include the Northwest Passage, a term used to describe the different pos- sible routes through the numerous islands that dot Canada's vast Arctic which — while rarely navigable because of ice — represent by far the shortest potential sea route between Europe and

Asia. However, the not so small matter of global warming and the prospects that in the not so distant future a clearer, more navigable lane - even for a portion of the year - would be available for reg- ular maritime traffic, has raised the mat- ter's importance of anyone involved in trade matters, which could benefit from the cost-saving route.

Washington disputes Ottawa's claim and others, who say the usually ice- clogged waters of the passage are inter- national and therefore open to all ship- ping. The commander of Canada's forces in the far north has already said the country might have to use its military to enforce its claims over all its territory.

Washington has, in the past, stoked tension with Canada by twice sending ships through the passage without per- mission - the specially designed oil tanker Manhattan in 1969 and the ice- breaker Polar Sea in 1985.

The trip by the 16,000-ton Healy will only be the third complete transit

Veripos Establishes Canadian

DGPS Service

Veripos now offers a Differential GPS service in Canada providing Inmarsat- delivered signal correction facilities for high-accuracy offshore navigation and positioning over ranges up to 2,000 km.

Two land-based reference stations pro- vide rapid correction update rates and low data latency with data uplinked via

Inmarsat's Atlantic West communica- tions satellite for transmission to users.

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May, 2000 through the passage by a U.S. ship since the two countries signed a 1988 agree- ment on Arctic cooperation pledging to help each other's icebreakers.

Healy can carry 75 crew members and up to 50 scientists and is primarily designed as an Arctic research vessel.

Fears regarding the potential opening of the waterway center around possible damage to the ecologically vulnerable passage each year. Canada's belief that it has the right to regulate traffic in the

Northwest Passage rests partly on a law it passed in 1970 to protect the fragile

Arctic environment from spills of oil and other waste from large bulk carriers.

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