New information about the future of Arctic ice released today by the Catlin Arctic Survey and the WWF provides more evidence that the ice in the Arctic Ocean is melting and thinning so much that the Arctic Ocean will see a mostly ice free summer within the next decade. more »

Seventeen teens from across the Northwest Territories are getting the opportunity to further their education and skills by attending the Western Arctic Leadership Program (WALP) taking place in Fort Smith. more »

While a Canadian Conservative MP’s push to rename the Northwest Passage the “Canadian Northwest Passage” is gaining the support of all Canadian political parties, one of the leading experts in international law and Arctic geopolitics says that the renaming could potentially backfire. more »

Three sailors who were sailing across the Northwest Passage this summer have completed the final part of their trip, landing in Halifax harbor on Saturday.

Cameron Dueck, along with two German sailors, sailed from Victory in early June and headed to the Arctic. The purpose of the voyage was to raise awareness about the impact that climate change has on the Arctic.

The three man crew sailed on the Silent Sound, a 40 foot yacht made out of fiberglass. Dueck said that Silent Sound was one of the smallest vessels to ever sail the Northwest Passage without the help of an icebreaker. He also said that as the summer ice in the Arctic continues to melt and retreat, similar trips will also become a possibility.
But despite the lack of ice the trip was not an easy one.

‘We had waves up to 8m high and winds over 40 knots. Silent Sound was being tossed around a lot, and I was thrown clear across the cabin on one occasion,” Dueck said, “suffering a minor concussion that kept me in my bunk for several days.”

Part of the trip involved talking to people living in the Arctic about the effects of climate change on the North and Dueck said that through their conversations it became clear that global warming is creating some major changes in the Arctic.

For those Native communities that relied in the past on the ice in order to access their traditional hunting grounds, Dueck said, finding that the ice is harder and harder to count on.

“It seems like those things don’t apply anymore because the ice is moving faster, it’s breaking up faster, it’s just much more dangerous and unpredictable.” he said. “And we heard that story again and again, every hunter we spoke to.”

“We saw and heard first hand about the impacts of climate change, from slumping land due to the melting of permafrost to hunter stories about the northward migration of species and the challenge that early ice break-up poses for transportation.”

According to scientists, you would need to go back in time at least 15 million years in order to find levels of carbon dioxide that are as high as today’s levels. more »

During this week’s 19th International Seapower Symposium, 101 countries came together to discuss such issues as international piracy and the various challenges that are occurring due to the melting Arctic ice and the new shipping route that has been created. more »

In a press release NASA announced yesterday that the Arctic sea ice extent in 2009 was the third lowest since 1979, when U.S. satellite first started taking measurements of the floating ice in the Arctic Ocean. While the ice area minimum increased from the past two years, it is still below the average amount of ice coverage in the past 30 years. more »

In the midst of talk of a vote of non confidence and growing dissatisfaction among the other parties with the current Canadian government, all four parties were able to set aside their differences and support a Conservative MP’s idea of renaming the Northwest Passage the “Canadian Northwest Passage”. more »