Canada races to build icebreakers amid melting ice and geopolitical tensions | Canada

FOr millennials, a mass of sea ice at the top of the Arctic has changed with the seasons, throwing its outer layer in summer and developing in winter as it runs between Russia, Canada and Alaska. Known as Gyre de Beaufort, this dynamism of geography and oceanography was once a test field so that the ice “matured” in thick leaves.

But more. A rapidly changing climate has reshaped the region, reducing sustainable sea ice. While the ocean currents run what is left of the gyre, pieces of ice now obstruct many channels separating the northern islands.

The Canada Coast Guard has an expression for this confusion phenomenon: less ice means more ice.

“Most people think that climate change means that you will not need heavy ice breakers,” said Robert Huebert, an arctic security expert at Calgary University. “And the experience of the coastal guard is: no, you need much more icebreaker.”

To solve the problem, Canada builds a new fleet of ships to fight through the former sea ice. It is not the only one, with the prospect of the opening of new shipping routes – and with them access to critical minerals in the Arctic – Russia, China and the United States are also rushing to build new glaces.

“A single floating city”

In the shipyards of Seaspan in the north of Vancouver, linked on one side by Ocean and the other by mountains, the teams began to cut the steel for a 520-foot fleece icebreaker which will operate at temperatures close to -50c (-58f). The project should take at least five years to finish and cost $ 3.15 billion C ($ 2.32 billion).

Once finished, the heaviness of ice will be the centerpiece of the recently announced national naval strategy of Canada, which seeks to further enrage its presence in the Arctic – and to distance itself from decades of delay, bureaucratic trial and error and broken promises.

The challenge of building a icebreaker is that the end result must operate in some of the most inhospitable places on the earth with little risk of failure, according to experts.

“Naval construction is one of the older industries, but it is always one of the last industries to be perfect, because the reality is that you are building a single floating city,” said Eddie Schehr, vice-president of the company’s production. By walking through the “stores” similar to hangar where the parts are gradually welded in order to ultimately make a shell, it compares the complex assembly to an expensive and often erroneous form of Lego. “And so it’s often only the end, very, you will find problems. And you will find them. “

Even supposedly simpler parts require steel which often measures 60 mm thick and requires special machines for the stress test.

“Due to the strength and the capacities that ships must have, it is double the thickness and really, twice the ship,” he said. “You must operate and think about a completely different level.”

Delay and request

The ship will be a class 2 icebreaker, which means that it can work all year round and push through ice as large as 10 feet. The last time Canada built a ship similar to the national level, it was in the 1960s and this ship, the Louis St Laurent, Still remains the largest of the two heavy ice breakers in Canada.

Canada announced for the first time that it would replace Louis St Laurent in 1985,, But these plans were scuttled. It was not until 2008, When Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that his government would build another replacement: a heavy icebreaker called John G Diefenbaker. It was not built either, but Schehr remembers having studied the plans of the boat at university.

“Time is a big circle. Now I’m here and we are finally building this ship,” said Schehr.

For skeptics, Seaspan can indicate the Nappaaluk Nappaaluk, an offshore oceanographic scientific vessel which he recently finished which can work in ice almost 4 feet thick and is responsible for identifying the real impact of climate change “when he is at sea, explains Schehr.

The Federal Government of Canada also ordered another company, Davie’s shipyards in Quebec, to build a second icebreaker, supervising the decision as a gravity of the moment: large wicking, incredibly slow to produce, are necessary quickly.

In 2024, Davie bought a shipyard in Helsinki. And in mid-June, the company also bought a shipyard in the United States, which is part of an effort to pass future production in the South to bypass the restrictive American legislation which prohibits foreign companies from building ships.

“If we built two galaes and two shipyards, it is the safest way to do it ineffective,” said Huebert. “The Coast Guard will have to train on two different ships. And for the next 50 years, there will be few common points in repairs and parties. If you have asked me what is the most expensive and ineffective way to build more than one ship, just look in Canada and its galaes. ”

Internally, Canada’s historic incapacity to bring together the resources necessary to build a new ship has become both joke and embarrassment. But the recently signed ice pact, a tripartite agreement between Finland, Canada and the United States, could change world production while Canada seeks to relaunch its naval construction industry.

Finland has already built 80% of world ice ships operating in freezing waters. But the agreement, announced at the NATO summit in Washington, will see up to 90 icebreaker ships produced in the coming years by the three countries. Seaspan and Davie hope to be a supplier of the American Coast Guard in the years to come if they can successfully produce a heavy icebreaker.

The race for domination

Russia would have at least 50 wicked and more than a dozen can operate in the hardest climates. China probably has four that is suitable for Arctic ice, although the seasons in which it can work is not clear.

Donald Trump pointed out that he wanted up to 40 ice breakers, suggesting that the Arctic Allied nations enter a arms race for ships.

Navigation experts claim that the president’s interest in a fleet of glaces reflects a fervor in the maritime transport industry of several billion dollars: erasing the passage from northwestern ice for more of the year could reduce the weeks of leave of shipping times between Europe and Asia.

But it’s not just a matter of money. In recent months, the Federal Government of Canada has promised significant investments for the Arctic in a demonstration of military force.

“We see the centrality of the Arctic for the Russians and that the Russians become a much more aggressive state, the importance of this capacity becomes much clearer,” he said. “But if you build wicked wolves for sovereignty, it is starting to go beyond the galaes. Now you have to invest in the satellite, the radar and the submarines. They are all part of a system. Les Bree-Glaces alone are not enough.”

Some are skeptical about the fact that the thrust for new glaces reflects a booming arms race.

“We need Canadian government ships that can operate in the Canadian Arctic when there are other expeditions there. “But politicians and experts often degenerate concern:” Oh my God, the Russians come “, or” the Chinese arrive “. I don’t see any evidence of this.

Byers notes that Russia has a different coastline and larger it should maintain for expedition all year round, requiring ships more worthy of ice.

Instead, Byers points to a reality in which more ships demand the passage of the Arctic. “With less ice in the Arctic, it actually becomes more difficult and risky.”

When the ships moving into free water encounter conditions of wind stroke and the temperatures of cold air, the ocean spray can freeze on the ships and, in some cases, accumulates so much that it sang them.

“We will always need ice breakers because the Arctic will always remain a dangerous place. And that is why we will always need the Canadian government to make or buy these ships. ”