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A second heavy icebreaker, the CCGS Imnaryuaq (both are named for Inuit locations) is already under construction at Vancouver’s Seaspan Shipyards. Canada has only a single heavy icebreaker in service at the moment, and it’s in bad shape. In all, the government has funded two dozen new icebreakers to more than double the current fleet.

The buildout has gained urgency this year. Relations between Canada and its neighbour soured after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened steep tariffs and insisted it should become the 51st state. That led Prime Minister Mark Carney to announce an additional $9 billion in defence spending, emphasizing the ability to patrol and defend Arctic territory as crucial to Canada sovereignty. 

Trump has his own icebreaker ambitions, and they’re not modest. To the current U.S. fleet of three icebreakers, he wants to add 48; the sweeping tax bill that passed into law this year earmarked $8.6 billion (U.S.) to get started. It’s enough to fund construction of 17 vessels, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. 

Thawing of the top of the world from climate change has stirred a global competition to forge new, previously unnavigable shipping routes and access once-remote oil and gas fields and stores of minerals. The big melt also opens up formerly icebound areas to military activity. 

Russia is the clear world leader with 47 icebreakers in service, according to Mikhail Grigoriev, director of the Moscow-based Gecon consultancy. These ships are roughly equivalent to what Canada and the U.S. classify as heavy or medium icebreakers. An additional 15 Russian vessels are under construction, Grigoriev said, with the contract signed for yet another. 

China, Sweden, and other countries are also in the process of expanding their fleets, according to Finnish engineering firm Aker Arctic Technology Oy.

“I have never seen a demand signal like this in shipbuilding for icebreakers,� said James Davies, chief executive of Quebec-based Chantier Davie Canada Inc., whose Davie Shipyards is building the Arpatuuq.

If geopolitical interest in the polar region has surged, so have U.S. and Canadian worries about how to defend their vast Arctic territories. Alaska is by far the largest U.S. state, and Canada’s Arctic is more than two-and-a-half times the size of Alaska. Recent strategies released by both nations share concerns about Chinese and Russian activity and co-operation in the region.

That’s where icebreakers come in. The need for the ships rises, counterintuitively, as sea ice declines. Shipping corridors that used to be frozen solid for much of the year now have less ice and can be made navigable year-round — with the right vessel. Arctic sea ice covered the smallest area in almost half a century last winter, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Even in a best-case scenario, the Arctic is expected to have ice-free summers as soon as the 2030s.

Heavy rules the ice

Several medium-heavy and medium icebreakers are on the order books of Davie and Seaspan. These ships can meet the needs for most Arctic countries by keeping harbours open and clearing many ice patches. They can also signal a country’s physical presence in a sensitive area, conduct scientific research or carry out search-and-rescue operations.

The Imnaryuaq and the Arpatuuq are heavy icebreakers, able to punch through up to three meters of multi-year ice (which is tougher than fresh ice). Ships that size can operate at polar latitudes year-round. Their biggest limitation is that they can’t track submarines, said Peter Rybski, a retired U.S. navy engineer and icebreaker expert who served as U.S. naval attaché to Finland from 2017 to 2021.

“Having been on a ship on the ice, it sounds like you’re driving a 1970s pickup truck down a gravel road,� he said. “From a naval perspective, they’re easy for submarines to find. And since they’re so noisy, they can’t find submarines.�

But they are essential for monitoring traffic on and above ice-riddled waters. Canada’s new ships will likely be kitted out with plenty of surveillance gear in addition to standard radar systems.

“We cannot see airplanes. We cannot see under water. Whether or not those are capabilities that the government of Canada might want for U.S. to have in the future on those polars is still something that will need to be determined,� said Neil O’Rourke, director of fleet and maritime services for the Canadian Coast Guard.

The ships also extend Canada’s ability to conduct polar research, including by mapping the seabed floor — information that’s critical in resolving boundary disputes and acquiring potentially lucrative rights to natural resources. Monitoring the Northwest Passage is complicated by the U.S. considering it an international strait rather than internal Canadian waters.

Canadians now paradoxically consider the U.S. both their greatest threat and their most important ally, according to a July survey by Pew Research. That’s left Carney with a fine line to tread: asserting Canada’s sovereignty without denying that its security, especially in the north, is tightly integrated with the U.S. Adding icebreakers has the side benefit for Canada of beefing up the country’s NATO spending total, as Trump has pressured it to do. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. is worried about traffic through the region. In July, the U.S. Coast Guard detected an icebreaker operated by China’s Polar Research Institute in an area the U.S. considers its extended continental shelf. In AugU.S.t, the U.S. Coast Guard said it was monitoring five Chinese research vessels.

Russia’s dominance, China’s plans 

Canada and the U.S. are playing catchup, and a big challenge for both countries is the lack of construction capacity. China is now the dominant global player in shipbuilding, said Davies of Chantier Davie. And Russia has 17 vessels that would be considered heavy icebreakers in North America, and six are capable of cutting through ice as thick as four meters.

“Nobody has such a powerful fleet as U.S.,� Putin said in late August at a meeting with nuclear scientists, referring to the nation’s icebreakers.

Eight of Russia’s heavy icebreakers are nuclear-powered, Putin noted in the same meeting. Nuclear icebreakers sustain higher speeds and don’t need to carry diesel fuel, meaning they can operate for longer stretches at the top of the world. Russia has been building up its fleet on the Kola Peninsula as it seeks to transport more oil and gas through the Northern Sea Route. 

Russia has also been experimenting with different types of cargo ships to push the technological limits of what’s possible. That included ice-capable liquid natural gas carriers built in South Korea, Rybski said, until sanctions stopped deliveries. Such ships “are designed to go bow first through the Suez Canal during the Arctic winter and then stern first through the ice in the Arctic summer,� he said.

The Northern Sea Route is key to Russia’s Arctic ambitions, and Rybski said Russia wants it to be used year-round and is working on building a domestic-made LNG carrier.

Russia has been encouraging China to expand its current use of the route, and the two countries have demonstrated their co-operation in the Arctic by jointly flying bombers together off the coast of Alaska. China, for its part, seems to be interested in acquiring more icebreakers to expand its current fleet of six, with state media last year reporting that development of a heavy vessel was underway.

The difficulty is ascertaining whether its four science vessels, which belong to the Ministry of Natural Resources, are also engaged in clandestine military activities. Over the years, Inuit Rangers have reported seeing submarines surface off Canada’s Arctic coastline, said Erin O’Toole, a former leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, but the country hasn’t had the resources to adequately monitor the vast region. 

“We certainly knew (the submarines) weren’t ours, and we could hope they were American. But hope is not a strategy when it comes to national Defence and sovereignty,� he said.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the country is “an important stakeholder in Arctic affairs,� where it strives to safeguard peace and stability while promoting sustainable development.

A more robust presence by the U.S. and Canadian in the Northwest Passage, including around the Bering Strait that separates Alaska from Russia, can’t happen until both countries build more ships. And experts say that will require the expertise of Finland, which has built most of the world’s existing icebreakers.

Finnish shipyards get busy

The 2024 Ice Pact between the U.S., Canada and Finland seeks to deepen polar shipbuilding ties. “There is a need for more icebreakers within NATO. We know that,� Mélanie Joly, Canada’s industry minister, said on a visit to Finland last month. “Canada is leading the way working with Finland and the U.S.�

Already, Trump has said he is in the process of negotiating with Finland to buy 15 icebreakers. Finland, for its part, seems keen to attract U.S. icebreaking business, possibly to keep Trump invested in the country’s security as it sits in the shadow of Russia. 

In a July interview with the CBC, Finnish President Alexander Stubb talked about his “straightforward, good relationship� with the U.S. President and the need for NATO to add about 40 icebreakers as a counterbalance to Russia. (Finland’s own fleet currently has eight.) That presents a clear economic opportunity for his country.

“Finland builds 60 per cent of the world’s icebreakers, we design 80 per cent of the world’s icebreakers, and we can churn them out in somewhere between two and three years,� Stubb said. “And we need to move fast.�

Both of Canada’s new heavy icebreakers will have Finnish connections. The Seaspan vessel was designed by a Canadian and Finnish team, while Davie’s is being physically constructed, in part, in Finland as a result of Davie’s 2023 purchase of the storied Helsinki Shipyards. In August, the two countries agreed to “intensify bilateral co-operation and dialogue across the full spectrum� of security issues. They also reaffirmed their support for the trilateral Ice Pact with the U.S.

Canada’s Seaspan and Davie also see business opportunities in U.S. demand for icebreakers. Davie recently purchased Texas shipyards in addition to expanding its Finnish shipyards. And in July, Seaspan announced a strategic partnership with Bollinger Shipyards Inc. in Louisiana and two Finnish shipyards, Rauma Marine Constructions Oy and Aker Arctic, to build Arctic security cutters for the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Seaspan-Aker multipurpose icebreaker design for the U.S. Coast Guard is the same design Seaspan is using for the Canadian Coast Guard, meaning the fleets could be “interoperable in terms of training, operations and in-service support,� a company spokesperson said.

It’s not clear yet how tensions between Canada and the U.S. could affect future deals. Defence spending is one point of leverage in ongoing trade talks. Shipbuilders project enough global demand to keep everyone busy for years to come, Seaspan’s CEO John McCarthy said in an interview earlier this year. “We even got a call from India,� he said, “around a potential icebreaker to go down to the South Pole.�

Bloomberg