Canadian historian Gwynne Dyer says the Arctic passage for cargo ships will never be heavily used and its potential is highly exaggerated. Dyer also believes that the current fight over an ice free Arctic passage is being highly overblown.

“The Northwest Passage will never attract a large number of cargo ship traffic even though there is less and less ice in the Arctic waterway,” Dyer told delegates at a recent conference on Arctic issues. “I think it’s very unlikely the Northwest Passage is ever going to become a major sea route.”

Dyer said the passage is too narrow and shallow in places even when it is ice free, and that most marine insurers would not consider insuring ships on such a route.

For most points of departure and destinations, Dyer said, the Northern Sea Route in Russia is just as good as the Northwest Passage.

“The thing about the Northern Sea Route is it’s already almost all open all year, and as soon as we get a little bit more warming and the ice around Novaya Zemlya melts, it will be open about eight or nine months a year along the coast,” he said.

Canada and the United States have long disputed the ownership of the Northwest Passage. Canada maintains it’s a Canadian waterway while the U.S remains firm on its stance that the passage is an international waterway.

“The U.S. already has support on the matter from the European Union,” said Rob Huebert, an Arctic sovereignty expert with the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary. “They agree with the Americans and disagree with us on the terms of the status of the Northwest Passage.”

According to Dyer, Canada’s claim to the passage will not be recognized internationally. Instead, he suggested Canada should team up with Russia to ensure they both have control over shipping in their respective Arctic waterways.

“The negotiating objective should not be finally to get global recognition of our exclusive control of the Northwest Passage — because that’s dreaming in Technicolor — but to, you know, fight our corner hard enough that when we finally actually concede that these are international channels, we have the right to police them,” he said.