Canadian arctic marine transportation issues, opportunities and challenges

• Main Author: Lasserre, Frédéric
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: University of Calgary 2022
• Subjects: Transports maritimes côtiers; Navires marchands; Corridors de transport; Dégel; Communauté > Approvisionnement; Arctic; Nunavut; Baffin Bay; Canada; Greenland; Arctique*; Baffin; greenlandic; Newfoundland
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11794/72406; https://doi.org/10.11575/sppp.v15i1.72626

Shipping in the Canadian Arctic is mainly driven by fishing, mining activities and community resupply. Fishing, mostly carried out by vessels based in Newfoundland and still less developed than in Greenland, is gradually moving north to Baffin Bay. Community resupply and ore transportation are expanding, but strategies pursued by the four shipping companies involved differ. MTS took over from bankrupt NTCL in 2016 with a more limited service. Coastal Shipping Ltd., Desgagnés and NEAS all expanded westwards and opted for larger, heavier vessels without expanding frequency of service. The lack of port infrastructure in the Canadian Arctic hampers the development of commercial shipping, fishing, cruise tourism and extractive industries. The four companies dedicated to community resupply are determined to take advantage of business opportunities in the Canadian Arctic, just as shipping companies involved in mining operations are responsible for a fast expansion of their traffic. In these conditions, northern corridors inland could possibly support the development of improved community resupply, as well as mining operations, provided they can service clusters of mines and communities. The lack of port infrastructure in the Canadian Arctic hampers the development of commercial shipping, fishing, cruise tourism and extractive industries. Community resupply in the region relies on large vessel sealifts, which enable companies to service several communities with few voyages to secure economies of scale. Given the absence 4 of infrastructure in the communities, goods are unloaded on the beach using tugboats and barges carried by the vessel. In this respect, the Canadian Arctic differs strikingly from the Greenlandic, Norwegian or Russian Arctic, where communities benefit from deep-sea ports that greatly facilitate loading and unloading operations and prove conducive to the development of economic activities. In the Canadian Arctic, companies have adapted to these logistical constraints and may even benefit from the fact ...