Eric W. Manchester

MERRY CHARITABLE CHRISTMAS

2011-12-25T12:22:00.000-08:00

May this be the best Christmas you ever knew, one which left you overwhelmed with a sense of being the most fortunate person on Earth. May it be one that spoiled you breathless, with countless gifts of enormous magnitude and incalculable value. And, may you have lavishly given to others more magnanimously than you received. But, more importantly, may all your bounty be of the kind that inspires souls, warms hearts and brings hope.

Christmas is irrevocably associated with giving, regardless of your belief about its origin or meaning. Religious or not, this December season brings us closer to people – family, friends, and sometimes even strangers. But, very often the connection we’re inexplicably compelled to make is weakened – or goes miserably unfelt - because of a fixation on “stuff”. Succumbing to the buying frenzy that has become Christmas leaves the less wealthy feeling inadequate in their ability to demonstrate love for family, and imbues those of means with a false and unwarranted sense of meaning.

May your Christmas be rich in what really matters – feeling the loving embrace of family & friends, and finding the opportunity to personally help another living creature (human or otherwise). Perhaps more importantly, may your children learn from your example which gifts are truly priceless.

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All content © Eric W. Manchester. All rights reserved. Any use without prior written permission is prohibited. www.ewmanchester.com

FOR A FEW MILLISECONDS LESS

2010-02-27T10:55:00.000-08:00

Melting sea ice is attracting more than just foreign ships to travel on our Canadian Northwest Passage. If a billion-dollar plan to use our waterway goes ahead, it will leave behind a permanent souvenir in the form of an undersea cable connecting Tokyo and London.

Once laid, that 16,000km conduit will reside in our relatively shallow Passage, humming full of transmissions – apparently most importantly so that financial transactions will process 52 milliseconds faster than they do now.

One can only hope that the Canadian Government – and many other organizations and individuals – will ensure the thoroughness of pre-construction environmental studies.

In case you missed it, here is an article on the topic, recently published by the Ventura County Star (California)…

“ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Global warming has melted so much arctic ice that a telecommunication group is moving forward with a project that was unthinkable a few years ago: laying fiber optic cable between Tokyo and London by way of the Northwest Passage.

The proposed system would nearly cut in half the time it takes to send messages from the United Kingdom to Asia, said Walt Ebell, CEO of Kodiak-Kenai Cable Co. The route is the shortest underwater path between Tokyo and London.

The quicker transmission time is important in the financial world where milliseconds can count in executing profitable trades and transactions. “Speed is the crux,” Ebell said. “You’re cutting the delay from 140 milliseconds to 88 milliseconds.”

The project also serves as an example of how warming has altered the arctic landscape in profound ways.

The loss of summer sea ice led the U.S. to list polar bears as a threatened species in May 2008. Walruses in two of the last three years gathered by thousands on Alaska’s northwest shore rather than ride pack ice to unproductive waters beyond the Outer Continental Shelf.

Summer sea ice melted to its lowest recorded level ever in late 2007, and most climate modelers predict a continued downward spiral. The result is a path through the Northwest Passage, the arctic route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific.

“That opens up the construction window to actually do something like this without the need of heavy icebreakers,” Ebell said. “On the other side, you’ve got the market part of it and the increasing demand we’re seeing for lower and lower latencies, or transmission times.”

But the project, called ArcticLink, is not without hurdles — namely the estimated construction price of $1.2 billion, said Alan Mauldin, research director at TeleGeography Research, a Washington, D.C.-based telecommunications market research company. “That’s not a cheap project,” he said.

By comparison, a line beginning service this month between Japan and the U.S. West Coast was built for $300 million, he said.

The leaders of the project will need to persuade telecommunications companies to buy a piece of the capacity created by the cable. Telecom companies will make that decision largely based on demand from financial companies. “What we’ve seen is just because you have a diverse path does not mean that you can necessarily sell that capacity for much more than the current market price,” Mauldin said.

Ebell uses the analogy of building a shopping mall to describe the financing process: Secure some initial investments and then lure an anchor tenant to really drive the project forward.

The cable will cut a 10,000-mile path across half the world: It would be laid in deep water from Japan to the Aleutian Islands, then traverse north through the relatively shallow waters of the Bering Sea. The line would need a regeneration station — essentially a signal booster to compensate for the distance — on the northern coast of Alaska. From there, it will wend through the Northwest Passage, then dip around the southern tip of Greenland and across the North Atlantic to the United Kingdom.

Branches off the line would provide access to the East Coast of the U.S., ensuring quicker transmission times between Tokyo and New York, Ebell said.

“It will provide the domestic market an alternative route not only to Europe — there’s lots of cable across the Atlantic — but it will provide the East Coast with an alternative, faster route to Asia as well,” he said.”

Kodiak-Kenai Cable Co

2702 Denali Street, Suite 100

Anchorage, AK 99503

Direct: 907.278.6100

Fax: 907.222.2760

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ONE SMALL STEP

2010-02-18T12:41:00.000-08:00

Today, the intention to deliver humanitarian aid to our Arctic people is one small step closer to reality. Our group's name has just been approved.

We are the Canadian Arctic Aid Society.

Our operating name is:

Canadian Arctic Service Corps.

I'm now working to bring together interested parties who can contribute complimentary skills and resources to the Corps and its humanitarian work. Are you someone who could become part of the solution?

For more information, or to get involved (please do get involved):

Website: http://www.ewmanchester.com & click on "Arctic Expedition" & "Blog"

Email: arcticaid@ewmanchester.com

Thanks to those of you who expressed your support, encouragement and desire to participate in this critical effort!

If not now – when? If not us – who?

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SLOW GROWTH, FAST MELT

2010-02-06T13:54:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters)

“Scant ice over the Arctic Sea this winter could mean a “double whammy” of powerful ice-melt next summer, a top U.S. climate scientist said on Thursday, reuters.com says. “It’s not that the ice keeps melting, it’s just not growing very fast,” said Mark Serreze, director of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.

In January, Arctic sea ice grew by about 13,000 square miles (34,000 sq km) a day, which is a bit more than one-third the pace of ice growth during the 1980s, and less than the average for the first decade of the 21st century.

Arctic ice cover is important to the rest of the world because the Arctic is the globe’s biggest weather-maker, sometimes dubbed Earth’s air-conditioner for its ability to cool down the planet.

More melting Arctic sea ice could affect this weather-making process; it is unlikely to lead to rising sea levels, any more than an ice cube melting in a glass of water would make the glass overflow.

If Arctic ice fails to build up sufficiently during the dark, cold winter months, it is likely to melt faster and earlier when spring comes, Serreze said by telephone from Colorado.

“We’ve grown back ice in the winter, but that ice tends to be thin and that’s the problem,” he said. “You set yourself up for a world of hurt in summer. The ice that is there is also thinner than it was before and thinner ice simply takes less energy to melt out the next summer.”

With less of the Arctic sea covered in ice in winter, and with the existing ice thinner and more fragile than before, “you’ve got a double whammy going on,” Serreze said.

This more perishable thin ice is prone to early melting, and when it does, the heat-reflecting light-colored sea ice is replaced by heat-absorbing dark-colored ocean water, which accelerates spring and summer melting in the Arctic.

This winter, there were unusually warm December temperatures in the Arctic due to a weather pattern known as the Arctic oscillation, so ice grew more slowly than normal.

In January, that pattern shifted to produce cooler Arctic temperatures. The ice extent — the area the ice covers — was below normal over much of the Atlantic sector, including the Barents Sea, part of the East Greenland Sea and in the Davis Strait.

There was above-average ice extent on the Pacific side of the Bering Sea, the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported.

The last three years — 2007, 2008 and 2009 — had the lowest level of ice extent since satellite records began in 1979.”

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CANADIAN ARCTIC AID

2010-02-05T13:27:00.000-08:00

I’m asking for your help to assist Canada’s Arctic people.

When I see how Canadians rally to help those in dire need around the planet, besides being reassured that people haven’t entirely lost their compassionate souls, it bothers me to think that we can do such good elsewhere, yet all but neglect the Canadians here at home who need so much. To me, that is not only an embarrassment in our affluent nation but also a travesty among the worst kinds.

My passion for the Arctic ignited with my first deployment there as a youthful paratrooper, becoming evermore intrigued with successive missions from Alaska to Hudson Bay and points between. More recently, I had the privilege to better know the people and communities while plying the waters of the western Canadian Arctic aboard CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier (more information: www.ewmanchester.com and click on “Arctic Expedition”).

Learning their stories and seeing their life struggles left me inexplicably unsettled since returning to my southern comforts. I feel compelled to find ways to benefit their existence and to personally be challenged in the pursuit of a greater good. From my experiences in the Arctic, and because I want this amazing country of mine to be truly great everywhere within itself, I see this as an endeavour worth pursuing – if not long overdue.

I want to create an organization to deliver meaningful aid to our Arctic people and communities - not just short term, quick-fix stuff, but also an ongoing plan to foster northern community vitality and independence.

Regardless of its ultimate form, such an organization must be non-profit, non-governmental, non-political, non-religious, and non-partisan – being humanitarian to its core, with no other motive for its efforts.

It might seem that “everything” is needed, but there is a logical way to break the needs into something do-able for a specific community. Not to lead your thinking, I won’t mention here what is on my list – rather ask you, if you were mounting a humanitarian mission to the Canadian Arctic:

What do they need but not get from anyone else?
What do they get but need more of?
Which organizations or individuals seem likely allies to help make this happen?

These out-of-sight, out-of-mind Canadians exist in sub-standard, often-overcrowded dwellings and struggle with poverty, hunger, disease and despair – due in large measure to the northward encroachment of others interests.

Besides appreciating and valuing your observations and comments, I would welcome your collaboration to help make a difference in the lives of our farthest-north citizens.

If not now - when? If not us - who? Please care enough to become the solution!

Contact me via email: arcticaid@ewmanchester.com or post a serious comment on this Blog.

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CANADIAN ARCTIC HUNGER

2010-02-05T11:12:00.000-08:00

According to a study conducted by McGill University and the government of Nunavut, recently published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, 70% of Inuit preschool-age children in that Territory regularly don’t get enough to eat because their families can’t afford to buy food. In some cases children miss meals or don’t eat for an entire day – with many adults trying to stretch food supplies by foregoing meals themselves.

That Arctic families must cope with insufficient quantities of affordable, nutritious food is not surprising. As successive generations become more obsessed with the worst elements of our southern diet, traditional and beneficial food sources – and the methods of acquiring that sustenance - are being abandoned in favour of nourishment from a box and beverages in a can.

Groceries in our far north can cost triple what folks in Canada’s lower latitudes are used to, necessitating cruel choices for a financially-struggling population. Consequently, expensive high-nutrient foods are often passed over for less-expensive, low-nutrient but filling substitutes. Such food choices have expected results – of the children studied, nearly 40% are overweight with another 30% even worse off.

The study was undertaken by McGill professor Grace Egeland, who led a medical contingent to the Arctic during 2007. Working from onboard Canadian Coast Guard Ship Amundsen, Egeland’s group interviewed families and examined children in 16 Nunavut communities to uncover signs of diseases, toxins, physical development, and to learn about struggles with addictions, suicide and other conditions impacting daily Inuit life.

Almost more troubling than Arctic kids going hungry is that it is so pervasive it has its own clinical term - food insecurity - defined as a shortage of food that is safe, nutritious and meets the requirements for a healthy and active life.

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PICTURE THIS!

2010-02-04T10:23:00.000-08:00

PolarCINEMA NEWS RELEASE (Feb. 04, 2010)

Registration Open

PolarCINEMA

IPY Oslo Science Conference

8-12 June 2010

Oslo, Norway

“Organizers of PolarCINEMA announce that registration for the program is open. This event will take place as part of the IPY Oslo Science Conference (IPY-OSC) in Oslo, Norway from 8-12 June 2010.

PolarCINEMA will showcase and celebrate unique productions that are inspired by and increase the awareness of the Polar Regions. Organizers invite all filmmakers, reporters, scientists, and educators to send in their polar productions and be part of this festival at IPY-OSC.

During IPY 2007-2008, film proved a strong instrument to explore new frontiers of polar science, and mesmerized and informed the public. Fiction films, documentaries, TV-series and internet broadcasts all helped translate polar science to the screen; portrayed a rich history of exploration, culture, and contemporary life; and investigated human and natural response and adaptation to a changing climate.

In Oslo, this rich legacy created by professionals and amateurs looking for new and innovative ways to get the message across will be celebrated. The PolarCINEMA will include a mixture of screenings, debates, and open discussions with filmmakers, educators, scientists, and the public. Topics of discussion will include the success and impact of the medium in increasing our understanding of the Arctic and Antarctic and their relation to the rest of the globe.”

More information on the submission process and the general rules and procedures, as well as the entry form, is available at: http://www.ipy-osc.no/section/1259870117.03

Entry Deadline: Monday, 15 February 2010.

Contact: Mare Pit. Email: mare.pit@iasc.info

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CANADIAN ARCTIC SECURITY

2010-02-03T15:16:00.000-08:00

According to recent reports, some senators working the DND and DFO files believe that Canadian Coast Guard should be principally responsible for Arctic security, leaving the Navy free for Pacific, Atlantic and foreign assignments.

That belief is supported in part by the fact Coast Guard has icebreakers and considerable, long-running Arctic know-how, whereas the Navy has neither – further fuelled by concerns that the Navy’s proposed new Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ships will be too slow, insufficiently ice-capable and inadequately armed to do the job.

The Senate’s Fisheries and Oceans committee recently joined the ranks of other proponents who think that our Coast Guard ships should be suitably armed – especially in the Arctic – emulating America’s para-military nature of its coast guard. But, the committee does see an expanded role over the Arctic for the Canadian Forces via an expansion of its surveillance flights - made by military or contracted aircraft.

However, the CF’s capability is now restricted while its surveillance mainstay – the CP-140 Aurora patrol aircraft – undergoes life-extensions to keep aloft for another decade. To have any real eyes-in-the-skies potential, the new CF patrol aircraft planned for 2020 will need to be in greater quantity than our present dozen Auroras.

In the meantime – or perhaps always – it wouldn’t hurt to ensure that all other suitable government-owned planes, regardless of primary purpose, are fully utilized to augment our observational capacity. Otherwise, our Arctic sovereignty just might be carried on the wings of private operators.

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AFGHANISTAN WAR CLAIMS FIRST CANADIAN JOURNALIST

2009-12-30T16:53:00.000-08:00

It was just a matter of time until someone tasked with telling the Canadian story became part of it. Perhaps the real news is that it didn’t happen before now.

This information comes from CBC NEWS and the GLOBE & MAIL reports…

"Today, four Canadian soldiers and a Canadian journalist were killed in a powerful blast in Kandahar city. The deaths occurred as they drove through a supposedly safe part of the city on a regular patrol. Brig.-Gen. Daniel Ménard said one Canadian civilian was also wounded in the attack.

The military did not immediately release any names. The four soldiers were based at the Canadian military-civilian outreach compound in Kandahar. Reporters at the Kandahar Airfield base identified the journalist killed as Michelle Lang of the Calgary Herald newspaper. She had been in Afghanistan for just over two weeks on her first assignment in the country for Canwest News Service.

Lang, who was in her early 30s, grew up in Vancouver and was a well-respected health reporter for the Herald, winning a National Newspaper Award in 2008 for best beat reporting. She had also worked in Regina and Moose Jaw.

Friends describe Lang, who was engaged, as bright with a sharp tongue and quick wit.

"She came across as sweet and quiet — but could bring a room down with laughter with one observation," one friend said. "She was a fabulous friend: kind, loyal, thoughtful. No number of adjectives can describe her talent, her charm, or the hole she leaves in the lives of those close to her."

The death of the five Canadians comes a week after Lt. Andrew Nuttall was killed by an explosive near the village of Nakhonay in Panjwaii District, about 25 kilometres southwest of Kandahar city.

It was the worst single day for Canadian casualties in Afghanistan since six soldiers were killed on July 4, 2007, when their large armoured vehicle struck a roadside bomb on a well-used road in the Panjwaii district, about 20 kilometres southwest of the city of Kandahar.

Since 2002, 138 Canadian soldiers have been killed serving in Afghanistan.

Today's casualties bring the number of Canadian civilians killed in Afghanistan to four. The reporter is the first Canadian journalist to be killed while covering the conflict in Afghanistan. Seven journalists from other countries have also died.

The attack happened the same day eight Americans were killed in an attack on a military base in the eastern province of Khost."

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SIGN OUR GUEST BOOK OR WE’LL SHOOT

2009-12-21T13:29:00.000-08:00

OK, it hasn’t exactly come to that, but, Canada’s nice and polite reputation is developing muscles because of foreigners’ rising penchant for shortcuts through private property – notably our Canadian Northwest Passage.

However, for Canada to wield dominion of significant calibre, it’ll need more than rhetoric, my grandfather’s rifle (carried by the Canadian Rangers) and surplus WWII deck guns (currently sported on some naval ships). Considering our tardy and soft foray into the Arctic sovereignty game, we urgently need solid, deliberate, effective plans and action instead of speech-making and after-thoughts.

In case you missed it, following is a CANWEST NEWS SERVICE article on the subject.

“OTTAWA — A Senate committee probing the role of the Canadian Coast Guard in asserting Arctic sovereignty is urging the government to arm patrol ships with "deck weaponry capable of giving firm notice" to foreign vessels that this country controls the Northwest Passage.

The Senate fisheries committee also recommended new rules that would require all ships — regardless of size or country of origin — to register their presence in northern Canadian waters, strengthening the partly voluntary NORDREG system now in place.

The proposals are potentially provocative because while Canada considers the Northwest Passage part of this country's "internal waters," the U.S., the European Union and others insist the sea route is an "international strait" beyond Canada's exclusive jurisdiction.

Notably, the Senate report paired its recommendations for bolstering Canada's Arctic presence with a push on the diplomatic front, urging the federal government to "proactively engage the United States in bilateral discussions" to resolve the long-running dispute over the status of the Northwest Passage.

"As the Arctic grows in strategic and economic importance, Canada needs to do more to ensure control of shipping in northern waters," said Liberal Senator Bill Rompkey, chair of the committee. "Full control over Arctic waters is a matter of sovereignty. It is also a matter of protecting the exceptionally fragile coastal and marine environment for northern residents — primarily the Inuit who have used those lands and waters for countless generations."

In 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced plans to expand NORDREG so that all large vessels entering Canada's northern waters would have to notify Canadian authorities. But Rompkey said that plan has not yet been implemented and it wouldn't include smaller vessels anyway, leaving a serious gap in Canada's Arctic security.

"We're saying that all vessels — no matter what size and what they carry — should have to report to Canadian authorities," Rompkey told Canwest News Service. "The threat is not just oil spills and not just commercial vessels moving through. The threat is drugs and the threat is terrorism. And we've got to counteract that."

He said anything but mandatory registration of all foreign ships in Canadian waters is "going to lead to chaos" as melting Arctic ice opens northern waterways to more and more traffic from the oil industry, tourism and — potentially — crime.

Rompkey said those concerns are also behind the Senate committee's recommendation that coast guard ships — and the fleet of six to eight additional Arctic patrol vessels promised months ago by the Conservative government — should be adequately armed to deal with trouble in the North.

"The key word is preparedness," Rompkey said. "If you're not prepared to meet the ultimate challenge, nobody is going to pay attention to you and you're not going to be credible. We have got to be up there with a robust (presence) — and that means armaments: arms on the deck and arms in the hands of the people on board."

The report highlighted the unauthorized 2007 voyage to Cambridge Bay, Nunavut of the Berserk II, a Norwegian-flagged ship** that included two armed crewmen with criminal records. After leading RCMP on a chase for several days to avoid detection, the crewmen were eventually detained and deported and the ship sent out of Canadian waters.

** Note: Berserk II is a sailboat, not a ship. To read about the Berserk II incident go to: http://www.ewmanchester.com/articles/Berserk_Arctic.pdf **

Rompkey acknowledged that the Conservative government has set a new benchmark for action on Arctic issues and "is on the right track, and thinking the right way" with a northern policy that has made — or promised — considerable investments in ships, military training, research centres and other northern infrastructure.

"But those things aren't enough," he insisted. "I know this is a period of restraint and we're coming out of a recession. But we're running out of time. Those waters are opening up."

The report emphasized the need for a closer relationship between the government and Inuit leaders in planning Canada's Arctic strategy. And it called for an Arctic-based control centre for all northern coast guard operations and other activity aimed at asserting Canadian sovereignty and security.

MPs recently approved a plan to rename the sea route through Canada's Arctic Islands the "Canadian Northwest Passage" to symbolically assert authority over the disputed waterway.

But the U.S. has given strong indications this year of strengthening its own presence in Arctic waters. Just before leaving office in January, former president George W. Bush issued a White House directive that reiterated the U.S. position that the Northwest Passage is an international strait and called for a stronger projection of American force in the Arctic.

And the U.S. navy recently issued a report predicting potential military conflicts in Arctic waters as the international struggle for control over oil and gas resources intensifies.

Russia and Canada have clashed several times in recent years over military test flights in the Arctic and controversial Russian "stunts" at the North Pole — including a 2007 flag-planting on the seabed and a proposed parachute drop in early 2010.

But Canada and the four other nations with Arctic Ocean coastlines — the U.S., Russia, Norway and Denmark (Greenland) — have also pledged to work peacefully to establish undersea boundaries and open the polar region to sustainable economic development.”

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WHAT’S IN A NAME?

2009-12-19T17:21:00.000-08:00

Only time will tell if the patriotic moniker recently added to our Northwest Passage will be simply symbolic or seriously substantive, but it does illustrate a perceived need to nationalize something we thought Canada already owned.

In case you missed it, here’s a CANWEST NEWS SERVICE article describing the renaming event.

“OTTAWA — A controversial bid to rename the country's Arctic sea route the "Canadian Northwest Passage" has passed almost unanimously in the House of Commons, a surprising outcome after Inuit leaders and opposition MPs argued the renaming process initially lacked input from the North's aboriginal inhabitants.

But an amendment to the private member's bill that promises recognition of an additional Inuktitut name for the disputed waterway appears to have allayed concerns, allowing all MPs to support the symbolic boost to Canada's Arctic sovereignty.

Just one MP abstained from voting on the proposal, championed by Ontario Conservative MP Daryl Kramp.

"I am obviously very pleased," Kramp, who missed Wednesday's vote on the motion, told Canwest News Service by e-mail from China, where he's part of Canada's delegation for the state visit by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Kramp said 11th-hour assurances to all parties that Inuit communities were widely consulted about the proposed change sealed the vote in favour of renaming the passage.

Liberal MP Larry Bagnell, an original backer of the motion who later withdrew support over Inuit concerns about the change, said the "major problems have been addressed" with an additional round of consultation ahead of Wednesday's vote.

He said there "a lot more problems" confronting northern communities than the waterway's name and that it was time to halt the debate over a relatively "inconsequential" symbolic act.

In early November, Inuit leader Paul Kaludjak pressed MPs at a Commons committee to consider the wishes of Nunavut's aboriginal population — and honour the millennium of Inuit history in Canada's North — before proceeding with plans to rename the Northwest Passage the "Canadian Northwest Passage."

He said many Inuit living along the sea route know the passage as "Tallurutik" — an Inuktitut word derived from linear landscape features along the coast of Devon Island and an associated tattooing ritual among Inuit women.

Canada has faced an ongoing challenge to assert control over what this country considers "internal waters" but which the rest of the world — most notably the U.S. — sees as an "international strait."

That jurisdictional challenge prompted Kramp's proposed addition of "Canadian" to all official references to the passage, meant to symbolically bolster Canada's sovereignty over the shipping lanes through the country's Arctic islands.”

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All content © Eric W. Manchester. All rights reserved. Any use without prior written permission is prohibited. http://www.ewmanchester.com/

COMING TO AN ARCTIC NEAR YOU

2009-12-18T13:21:00.000-08:00

Foreign warships, icebreakers and stealthy aircraft are headed our way. Many nations – some nearby, some faraway – have the Arctic plotted on their big road atlas of places to visit, infringe or exploit. Regardless of their guise, foreign interest in the Arctic means that Canada's northern sovereignty will have to be more than just a line drawn in the receding ice.

Here’s what The Ottawa Citizen (newspaper) recently published…

“OTTAWA — The U.S. Navy is planning a massive push into the Arctic to defend national security, potential undersea riches and other maritime interests.

An "Arctic roadmap" released by the Department of the Navy details a five-year strategic plan to expand fleet operations into the North in the expectation the frozen Arctic Ocean will be open water in summer by 2030.

While the plan talks diplomatically about "strong partnerships" with other Arctic nations, it is clear the U.S. is intent on seriously retooling its military presence and naval combat capabilities in a region increasingly seen as a potential flashpoint as receding polar ice allows easier access.

"This opening of the Arctic may lead to increased resource development, research, tourism, and could reshape the global transportation system. These developments offer opportunities for growth, but also are potential sources of competition and conflict for access and natural resources," says the 33-page document, signed by Admiral Jonathan W. Greenert, vice chief of Naval Operations.

"While the United States has stable relationships with other Arctic nations, the changing environment and competition for resources may contribute to increasing tension, or, conversely, provide opportunities for co-operative solutions," it says.

"Action items" in the planning document include:

- Assessment of current and required capability to execute undersea warfare, expeditionary warfare, strike warfare, strategic sealift (and) regional security co-operation.

- (Assessing) current and predicted threats in order to determine the most dangerous and most likely threats in the Arctic region in 2010, 2015 and 2025.

- Focus on threats to U.S. national security, although threats to maritime safety and security may also be considered.

- Identify the relevant actors concurrent to the forecast time frame.

- Determine incentives and motivations for each actor.

If the recent surfacing of a U.S. submarine near the North Pole left any doubt, the roadmap makes it clear the U.S. and other nations will increasingly flex military muscle in the resource-rich region, says a specialist on Canada's northern security.

"The Arctic is transforming and everyone else gets it and they're not going to go away," Rob Huebert, associate director at the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary, said Friday.

But behind a public facade the promotes international Arctic co-operation, "if you read the document carefully you'll see a dual language, one where they're saying, 'We've got to start working together' . . . and (then) they start saying, 'We have to get new instrumentation for our combat officers,'" says Huebert.

"People want to hope for the best and everyone's talking about co-operation and playing by the rules and I think they're trying not to provoke the Russians. But everyone has also recognized that, to a certain degree, the Russians are going to do what the Russians are doing," including more test launches of their Bulava intercontinental missiles from submarines on Russia's Arctic coast.

Canada was one of the first countries to identify the strategic issues of a melting Arctic, Huebert said, and successive federal governments this decade have, "a very accurate set of understandings of the problems that are coming. But in a typical Canadian fashion, we're still in a situation that we haven't started spending."

The Harper government has announced over the last several years the creation of a military training centre in the Arctic, economic aid to the region, as well as the construction of a new port, an icebreaker and a fleet of Arctic patrol ships. Work is underway on the various projects but in many cases it will take years before they are ready.

Defence officials recently told a parliamentary committee that six to eight Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS) set for construction will have minimum armament capabilities and few add-on capabilities. "(And) probably . . . a gun, but that seems an afterthought," said Huebert.

"The speed is being reduced so, if you're in a situation where the ice is indeed diminishing, you're going to be left with this very slow craft that's going to be the major instrument for us for the next 40 years. So we're penny-pinching at this point in time."

The Norwegian and Danes, by comparison, have spent the last 15 years re-arming with a very combat-capable and Arctic-capable navy and air force, he said. The Norwegians recently spent $7 billion on the most expensive class of ships that they've ever built. The five frigates are designed for high-Arctic operations with an air superiority capability and state-of-the-art U.S. Ageis combat systems.

"They're clearly understanding that the future is not nearly as nice as what all the public policy statements say," said Huebert.

And the U.S., in addition to the planned naval re-armament, is to station 36 F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jets — 20 per cent of its F-22 fleet, consisting of what many consider the best overall fighter jet in the world — in Anchorage, Alaska.

"If the north isn't important, why are you taking such a scarce, such an expensive aircraft . . . and putting one fifth of them in the Arctic? That tells you something."

Even the Chinese, he said, are building two to three new icebreakers that will give them an icebreaking fleet larger than the Americans and, "pretty well . . . larger than ours."

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POLAR BEAR CANNIBALISM

2009-12-18T12:26:00.000-08:00

While it’s true that the Polar Bear population in Canada significantly increased during the past 20 years, after the decimation caused by over-hunting, the Arctic’s changing environment poses a new and critical threat to that species.

Reportedly, the Western Hudson Bay population dropped 22% since 1987. The Southern Beaufort Sea bears are showing the same signs of stress, including smaller adults and fewer yearlings. At the most recent meeting of the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (Copenhagen, 2009), scientists reported that of the 19 subpopulations of polar bears, eight are declining, three are stable, one is increasing, and seven have insufficient data on which to base a decision.

Consequently, the following observations should be no surprise.

CANWEST NEWS SERVICE…

“Faced with a shrinking habitat in Canada's Arctic, polar bears are increasingly turning on their own kind in an act of hungry desperation. According to Manitoba Conservation, at least four cases of polar bear cannibalism have been confirmed in the northeastern Manitoba community of Churchill this year. Several more cases are being investigated.

Scientist Andy Derocher, who has spent more than 25 years studying polar bears in the Western Hudson Bay area, said the water usually freezes by mid-November, allowing the bears to drift away from the main land and hunt seals.

Warmer than normal temperatures this year have delayed that, he said.

"The cannibalism events are really just a manifestation of the effects of global warming on the bears," Derocher said. "It's an act of desperation; it's what they do when they can't find something else to eat. The rub here is that they've now been forced to sit on land for an extra month . . . The animals are winding down on the stored body fat that they have."

Infanticide occurs among all bear species, according the Polar Bears International, but, in the past, Manitoba has only received one report annually.

The organization said 20 years ago, polar bears would return to the ice in the Western Hudson Bay on Nov. 8; a decade ago that date extended to Nov. 20.

"It occurs with sparse regularity," said John Gunter, general manager of tour group Frontiers North Adventures, which leads polar bear expedition trips in Churchill.

On Nov. 20, one of his company's tours came across a case of polar bear cannibalization. "It was a sombre day after that event occurred."

Dubbed the polar bear capital of the world, about 16,000 tourists pass through Churchill each year.

Gunter said he's only heard of two other such cases in the past 30 years.

The group -- consisting of mainly amateur and professional photographers -- captured a number of graphic images of the adult male eating a young cub. "Seeing a natural event like this occur, no one was broken down by it," said Gunter of the naturalists’ reaction to the gruesome scene. "I think the real story here is what is causing the event."

"The problem for polar bears is it is nothing more than a habitat loss issue -- we are taking their habitat away from them and there is no real place for them to go," Derocher said.”

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INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

2009-11-30T13:14:00.000-08:00

Where I live is now emptier, with a silence that crushes my heart. The house used to be so much fuller and richer, in a taken-for-granted way. She was always noisily here, although her behaviour often lacked affection. Now and then she’d spontaneously snuggle against my cheek or lay her head on my lap, but it mostly seemed that she only wanted my company at mealtimes or on cold evenings.

She rarely cleaned up after herself, debris and smudges marking where she’d been. But, when the tumour began, housekeeping issues ceased to matter. Her doctor said that it was inoperable and incurable – maybe it would slowly grow, but the outcome was inevitable. She would, little by little and painfully, starve to death. Despite willing it to be otherwise, the tumour quickly grew and the agony began.

There was no reconciling the desire for her to breathe every possible moment of life, against a slow, painful decline to a wretched end. With appalling loss of body mass until she could barely walk, no longer able to eat or drink, she stoically faced her fate – still attempting lifelong routines even though they brought no benefit or comfort. She had no way to stop suffering, but there were means to bring her peace. The injections would be painless – the first to soothe, the last to mercifully end her misery.

Last Saturday morning she died in my arms, uncharacteristically and intently gazing through my teary eyes into my tormented soul – as if to say, “You must be strong enough to do this for me.” I was, but I’m not. Few go gently into that good night, but in the end she did and I’m thankful for her serene release. For a being who never wronged anybody in her long life, she at least deserved that.

When the doctor withdrew his stethoscope and said that she was gone, grief and conflict overwhelmed me. I killed her to spare her, and I don’t yet know how to live with that. Callie died at the age of 20 - being the equivalent of 100 human years, that was a long time for any cat to enrich a person’s life.

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POLAR LAND & LIFE DAY

2008-06-19T08:02:00.001-07:00

IPY

On June 18th, 2008, the International Polar Year 2007-8 (IPY) launched its fifth ‘International Polar Day’ focusing on Land and Life: the plants and animals of polar lands and the changing permafrost and hydrologic systems. This Polar Day occurred as hundreds of researchers focus on Arctic environments. It has been timed in conjunction with the Ninth International Conference on Permafrost (NICOP) in Fairbanks, Alaska, and the UNEP TUNZA International Children’s Conference in Norway, part of IPY’s continued role in raising public awareness of polar science.

Polar landscapes and terrestrial ecosystems extend from the tree line of the continental tundra to the remote northern islands of the Arctic, and from southern cold maritime islands to the dry continental deserts of Antarctica. Ice, particularly in the form of permafrost and seasonal snow cover, plays a dominant role in all these environments. Biological communities survive through remarkable adaptations and extensive migration. A range of climatological and ecological pressures act on these northern-most and southern-most ecosystems. IPY research is assessing changes in vegetation (so-called greening) methane production (due to permafrost degradation), wildlife health and migration patterns, coastal erosion, and freshwater availability.

A special Land and Life webpage has been prepared with information for Press and Educators, details of current projects, profiles and contact details for scientists around the world, images, background information and useful links and resources. There will also be a wide range of educational and community activities, including classroom experiments, a virtual balloon launch, and three live web-conferencing events connecting polar scientists to students around the world.

About IPY and International Polar Days
The International Polar Year 2007-8 is a large international and interdisciplinary coordinated research effort focused on the polar regions. An estimated 50,000 participants from more than 60 countries are involved in research as diverse as anthropology and astronomy, health and history, and genomics and glaciology. This fourth IPY was launched in March 2007, and will continue through early 2009. During this IPY, a regular sequence of International Polar Days will raise awareness and provide information about particular and timely aspects of the polar regions. These Polar Days include press releases, contacts to experts in several languages, activities for teachers, on-line community participation, web-conferencing events, and links to researchers in the Arctic and Antarctic.

The remaining schedule for International Polar Days:
September 24th 2008:

People social sciences
December 2008:

Above the Poles astronomy, meteorology, atmospheric sciences
March 2009:

Oceans and Marine Life marine biodiversity, physical oceanography

Contact For more information regarding this event:

Dr Rhian Salmon, IPY IPO Education and Outreach Coordinator ipy.ras@gmail.com, +441223221297

Dr David Carlson, IPY IPO Director, ipy.djc@gmail.com, +447715371759

Please visit the IPY Land and Life webpage.

Ninth International Conference on Permafrost: http://www.nicop.org/ International Polar Year http://www.ipy.org/

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HIGH ARCTIC EXILES

2008-06-13T15:25:00.000-07:00

RESOLUTE BAY, NU

Here’s an op-ed piece from Michael Byers worth considering. In it he states that Prime Minister Stephen Harper should apologize to Canadians he calls “High Arctic Exiles”, something that Byers believes is not only the right thing to do, but it would help cement Canada's northern claims.

Michael Byers, Canada Research Chair in global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia, is serving as a consultant to the Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans as it conducts hearings across Nunavut.

MICHAEL BYERS ARTICLE
Globe and Mail Newspaper
June 12, 2008

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has apologized for the behaviour of previous Canadian governments on three occasions now: the Chinese head tax, Maher Arar, and residential schools. Others are, or will, also be seeking apologies, but none is more compelling - both morally and politically - than a small group of Inuit who were arbitrarily relocated half a century ago.

Last summer, Mr. Harper asserted that, "Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty in the Arctic: either we use it or we lose it."

The statement prompted one Inuk to ask me: "What the hell is he talking about? We've been using it for thousands of years, and we're not going anywhere."

The anger is particularly intense in Canada's northernmost two communities. The Inuit call Resolute Bay "Qausuittuq," the place where the sun never sets, and Grise Fjord "Ausuittuq," the place where the ice never melts. These Inuktitut names reflect the fact that, historically, the Inuit did not live this far north.

The decision to relocate 17 families to the Queen Elizabeth Islands in 1953 and 1955 was motivated by concerns about possible Danish or American claims. The Inuit, identified by government officials by numbers rather than their names, were essentially treated as flagpoles. They were subsequently utilized as a resident source of cheap labour for RCMP detachments, and for the Royal Canadian Air Force Base at Resolute Bay.

There was, to be fair, some talk about the need to relieve the overpopulation of Inukjuak, the source Inuit community in Northern Quebec. But if the interests of the Inuit were paramount, why move them more than 1,500 kilometres northward to a High Arctic desert that bore little resemblance to their home?

There were reasons why the Inuit hadn't lived this far north before. Resolute Bay is an expanse of frozen gravel swept by persistent and powerful winds. Even in June, a stroll along the shoreline left me wishing that I'd brought my parka along. For the Inuit, it was like landing on the moon. Their traditional knowledge and hunting techniques were out of place, there was not enough snow to build igloos, and the total darkness from November to February was both unfamiliar and disabling.

Tuberculosis added to the misery. Those who survived the first few winters did so by scavenging for food from the Air Force dump, or bartering their bodies.

The survivors call themselves the "High Arctic exiles," and they include some of the Inuit's most influential leaders. John Amagoalik, the "Father of Nunavut," was five years old when he was relocated. So too was Martha Flaherty, who later became the president of Pauktuutit, the Inuit Women's Association. Senator Willie Adams, then a teenager, had the foresight to jump ship at Churchill.

In 1996, the Canadian government agreed to a $10-million compensation package. But it ignored the recommendations of three different bodies - the House of Commons Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Canadian Human Rights Commission, and Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples - and refused to apologize.

The refusal was described by Mr. Amagoalik as a "real slap in the face for us." Although the agreement recognized the "pain, suffering and hardship," it also stated that "government officials of the time were acting with honourable intentions in what was perceived to be the best interests of the Inuit."

The Inuit who signed the 1996 agreement felt they were doing so under duress. Their overriding concern was for the financial wellbeing of the elders who, after 40 years of waiting, were running out of time.

Much has happened in the past 12 years. Relations between the Inuit and the Canadian government have soured over failures to implement the 1993 Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, to address crises in housing, health and education, and to invest in basic infrastructure - such as a deep water port at Iqaluit and small craft harbours elsewhere.

At the same time, climate change and runaway oil prices have vaulted Arctic sovereignty to the top of Ottawa's economic, defence and diplomatic concerns. Mr. Harper has promised new ice-strengthened patrol vessels for the Navy and a polar icebreaker for the Coast Guard, and blocked the sale of Radarsat-2 - a satellite designed for mapping sea-ice and tracking oceangoing vessels.

Yet the Prime Minister has largely ignored the Inuit, which is a serious mistake indeed. As the Canadian government recognized in the early 1950s, Inuit use and occupancy of the Arctic is central to Canada's sovereignty claims. With the exception of Hans Island - an insignificant speck of rock between Ellesmere Island and Greenland - no country contests Canada's title to the islands of the archipelago today.

It's the status of the Northwest Passage that is now at issue. As the ice melts, foreign shipping is increasing and Canada's claim to control the waterway has come under renewed scrutiny.

Canada's position rests on two pillars: so-called "straight baselines" that were drawn between the outer headlands of the archipelago in 1985, and millenniums of Inuit hunting, travelling and habitation on the sea-ice.

The second pillar was given constitutional status when the 1993 Nunavut Land Claims Agreement affirmed that "Canada's sovereignty over the waters of the Arctic archipelago is supported by Inuit use and occupancy." It also carries weight abroad, with the International Court of Justice having recognized (in a 1975 case concerning the Western Sahara) that nomadic peoples can acquire and transfer sovereignty rights. But any argument based on a transfer of rights is weakened if the recipient fails to uphold the bargain, or to address other basic grievances held by the transferees.

The Inuit know the clock can't be turned back. They want to work with other Canadians to forge a better future. They seek to preserve the Arctic environment, protect our common sovereignty, and provide their children with a quality of life similar to our own.

But the Inuit also want respect. For a Prime Minister who cares about sovereignty, apologizing to the High Arctic exiles would be an excellent next step.

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WWF SAYS HALT SALE

2008-06-13T15:20:00.000-07:00

OTTAWA

The World Wildlife Fund urged Canada to postpone the sale of oil and gas rights in the Beaufort Sea, worried the drilling areas would overlap with key Arctic habitat for polar bears and whales. “This sale is premature due to the absence of a completed Beaufort Sea management plan that would protect sensitive habitats, which polar bears, beluga and bowhead whales need for their survival," Peter Ewins, director of species conservation at WWF-Canada, said in a statement. "In addition, there is no proven technique for recovering oil spills in such dangerous iced waters. "As such, the proposed June 2 sale must be delayed until a proper management plan for the Arctic region is in place, the group said. Alternately, an expedited environmental assessment for the region, with guarantees that oil spills could be quickly and easily mopped up, would satisfy both environmentalists and energy firms, it said.

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POLAR BEARS THREATENED

2008-06-13T15:12:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (Canwest)

Rapidly melting sea ice led U.S. President George Bush's administration to put the polar bear on its list of threatened species, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne said in Washington.

Although Kempthorne said that the decision should not be used to open the door to regulating greenhouse gas emissions from human activity using endangered species legislation, the Harper government said the concerns raised are clearly linked to global warming and the urgency of addressing pollution from industry that is trapping heat in the atmosphere.

"Let's be clear that there's no doubt that global warming is a major factor and a major concern in this," Canada's Environment Minister John Baird told reporters after question period in the House of Commons. "It's not just global warming, but it's human-induced global warming which is what we need to take action on."

Kempthorne acknowledged that polar bear populations have more than doubled since the 1960s, but he unveiled a series of satellite images of the North Pole from 1979 to last fall showing melting Arctic ice.

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UPPING ARCTIC ANTE

2008-06-13T15:04:00.000-07:00

OTTAWA (Canwest)

The federal government boosted its bid to claim millions of square kilometres of Arctic and Atlantic Ocean seabed. Ottawa said it will double its spending on scientific research projects to $40 million over four years in an attempt to prove the North American continental shelf extends far beyond Canada's 200-nautical mile limit. If Canada is successful with that bid, it can make the legal claim that its jurisdiction ought to extend over an area that some say could contain billions of dollars worth of oil and gas reserves.

Canada has until 2013 to make a case to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that it ought to be granted jurisdiction over the extended continental shelf, off the northeast coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada's high Arctic and in a wide crescent off Canada's East Coast. Canadian scientists believe the extended continental shelf could be as large as 1.75 million square kilometres, about the combined size of Canada's three prairie provinces.

"We will make our claim in 2013 and it will be based on sound science. The rules are very clear. They're not ambiguous," said Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn.

Other polar countries, including the United States, Russia and Denmark, also are trying to prove their claim to some of the same area. The U.S. hopes to snag an extra 600,000 square kilometres off the coast of Alaska, an area that some U.S. researchers believe contains $1.3 trillion worth of oil and gas reserves.

The U.S. Geological Survey, in fact, believes that as much as one-quarter of the world's oil and gas reserves may be buried under the Arctic Ocean's floor. In August last year, a Russian submarine planted that country's flag on the ocean floor under the North Pole, a gesture that was taken to be a symbol of Russia's aggressive stance toward extending its sovereignty in the Arctic. Russia also has boasted that, unlike Canada and some other polar countries, it has a fleet of heavy icebreakers that can operate year-round in all ice conditions.

But Lunn said the physical presence of one nation or another's assets will not be a factor under the UNCLOS system. You can have all the icebreakers you want and you can put all the flags on the ocean floor you want," said Lunn. "It's not going to help your claim. It's not going to make an iota worth of difference. It is based on sound rules."

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ARCTIC BLOG

2008-05-15T11:53:00.000-07:00

VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA

For anyone wanting to read my entries in chronological order, instead of the newest-to-oldest order appearing in my Blog, my daily journal is now posted at the bottom of the Arctic Expedition page of my website. There, you can follow my journey as it unfolded. There is also a link to galleries of photos from my 76-day voyage across the western Canadian Arctic. Bon Voyage!

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All content Copyright © Eric W. Manchester. All rights reserved. Any use without prior written permission is prohibited. http://www.ewmanchester.com/

SOMETHING FOR NOTHING

2008-05-15T01:36:00.000-07:00

VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA
Thursday, May 15, 2008

Something new, newsy and free.

If you want more free exposure for your marine-related organization, my website now includes a section dedicated to nautical news and coming events from all over British Columbia and nearby American states – and perhaps from farther away, too.

To view my news page, go to my website home page and click on the Nautical Notes photo icon.

www.ewmanchester.com

WHAT TO SUBMIT

What you promote about your group is limited only by your imagination:

On-the-water and land-based events or programs.

Results of regular club races, club-hosted and special regattas.

The accomplishments of your members and their boats.

A photo of something memorable, exciting or entertaining about your group.

News releases regarding your group.

Buy-sell-trade-wanted notices about boats, equipment and crew.

Membership and recruitment info.

Logo can be included.

HOW TO SUBMIT

Send your news tips via email to news@ewmanchester.com

Either embed your notice in the body of the email, or send it as an attachment.

Attachments must be Word or Text formats only. No pdf or video files.

Name, address, phone number and contact email address must accompany your submissions, for verification (contact info won’t be published, unless requested).

All photos submitted must identify who owns the copyright to the image(s) (including full contact information), and include specific written permission for the image to be published.

Photos must be in jpg format.

My news page includes subscription, forwarding and comment functions.

If you want to include a link to your group’s website in your submission, it will be fully-functional if you post and maintain my website link on your group’s website.

Material may be edited for space or content, and will be posted as quickly as volume, time and space permit. Submit as often as you like, BUT, remember that spammers are hunted and impaled.

Submit to: news@ewmanchester.com

MY PROMISE
I will not sell your links or contact information to any party. Images submitted will only be published on the news page, and will not be otherwise used without prior written consent.

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All content Copyright © Eric W. Manchester. All rights reserved. Any use without prior written permission is prohibited. www.ewmanchester.com