Vying for Arctic Sovereignty

"We got pinched. You're clearing a path, but the ice moves in and we got pinched."
"By the next morning they said 'We can build a new one out of spare parts'. We called it the Frankenstreamer. It wasn't pretty, but it worked."
"It all pulled it together in making a complete package and, I think, convincing arguments as to why this continental margin is part of the land mass [of Canada in the Arctic]."
"It's connected to the Canadian continental margin off of Ellesmere Island -- physically connected."
Mary-Lynn Dickson, lead scientist, report  to the United Nations

"It's [China]  after global influence, including in the Arctic."
"Arctic countries can't say no to investments. That's clear."
"We want to be sure we know what China is after."
Aleksi Harkonen, Finlandic ambassador for Arctic affairs

Jonathan Hayward / The Canadian Press

What China is after? What it has focused on everywhere in the world; increased visibility, recognition, trade, energy sources, raw materials -- power. To that end, it has created its blueprint to achieve all of that in the hope and expectation that it will lead to outpacing the United States as the world's most powerful economy through the full implementation of China's ambitious "One road, One belt" project, or: All Roads Lead To China.

And to realize this goal, China is making massive investments, extending large amounts of credit in countries from Asia to Africa and Europe in its bid to scoop up opportunities to advance its agenda. In so doing, China is making countries in struggling economic development massively indebted to it to repay funding it has advanced for costly infrastructure in roads, bridges, ports and other avenues of opening trade options.

Even Russia, its traditional rival and sparring partner, has not been exempt from China's blandishments of investment and cooperation. Retreating Arctic sea ice has created the potential for new shipping lanes that will cut transit time and cost substantially across the globe. New economic and strategic ties with Russia sees Chinese crews drilling for gas under the Kara Sea off the Russian northern coast.

Russia is a powerful Arctic power, one of eight nations whose direct geological prominence in the Arctic gives them sovereign claim to 200 nautical miles offshore as their exclusive economic zones. The United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf is the official adjudicator between the Arctic nations claiming their rights and to whom each of those nations -- Sweden, Norway, Russia, Canada, United States, Denmark, Iceland and Finland have submitted their science-based claims in preparation to negotiate terms of acceptance.

China has bystander status, but no geological proximity claims and is piggy-backing on Russia's claim for its own partnership access to energy and mineral rights extraction. Chinese cargo ships maneuver through the ice packs off Russia, a new Northern Passage they have named the Polar Silk Road, and have recently launched China's second icebreaker, the Snow Dragon 2. Asia's largest country as far from the Arctic as it is, in possession of two icebreakers.

Beijing hasn't stopped at investments only in Russia where billions have been invested in extracting energy from beneath the Yamal Peninsula in northern Russia's permafrost, where China is drilling for gas in Russian waters right alongside Gazprom, Russian's gas exploration giant. China is also prospecting for minerals in Greenland, with Huawei hoping to partner with a Finnish company to lay a new undersea Internet cable connecting Northern Europe to Asia.

Russia and Canada as well as Denmark are competing for recognition of sovereignty over the Lomosonov Shelf that extends from all three countries far out into the Arctic. Canada has just submitted its 2,100-page geological-scientific report to the UN arguing for control over a vast region of the Arctic sea floor, challenging Russia's claim. Dr. Dickson as the lead scientist on the icebreaker being used to delve the depths, described the third expedition north of Ellesmere Island where sea ice had clipped the team's underwaqter microphone, a streamer.

The instrument's use is to record signals rebounding off the sea floor. With the absence of the streamer the expedition was unable to produce the study results that Canada's claim would be partially built upon. The crew's technical team went to work and with spare parts produced a replacement, enabling Canada to make a strong case for the North Pole as part of Canada's Northern Arctic reach.

From the Canadian Coast Guard's Louis St.Laurent, the scientific team set out to prove the shelf is connected to Canada's land mass. Prodding the bottom of the sea through thousands of metres of icy water, researchers observed the thickness and origin of sediment layers, measurements were made of water depth. Geochemistry was analyzed, deciphering the type, age and structures of rocks hauled up from the deep. "They're so precious they're like moon rocks", observed Dr. Dickson.

The modern sea floor was reconstructed from its origins from ancient tectonic plates with comparisons made of the rocks, with data collected on High Arctic islands. The vessel the science team worked on made its way through ice so tough it stopped two icebreakers; so unpredictable two locator beacons were lost when the ice pan they were stationed on drifted away, to be recovered nine months later east of Greenland by the Danish navy.