Canada, the Arctic & Antarctic September 2025

22 October
Geothermal power is the key to cheaper energy in the Canadian Arctic
Gordon Brasnett specializes in techno-economic modelling, policy analysis and risk assessment as a fellow in the Cascade Institute’s Ultradeep Geothermal Program. Leighton Gall is the program’s technical and Indigenous energy lead. Peter Massie leads the Cascade Institute’s Geothermal Energy Office.
(Globe & Mail opinion) Canada is on thin ice if it can’t defend its Northern sovereignty. Warming is making the Arctic more accessible and vulnerable, and powerful countries – including a newly predatory United States – are moving to secure influence in the region.
But one factor above all others handicaps our ability to defend that sovereignty: energy costs in the Canadian Arctic are among the world’s highest. Most Northern communities, military bases and industrial sites rely almost entirely on diesel burned in generators and shipped from the South. For decades, this polluting system has been vulnerable to disruption and absurdly expensive.
The solution is nearby. Beneath the frozen Arctic landscape lies an abundant source of low-cost energy: geothermal heat. By drilling kilometres into the Earth, Northern communities can tap this heat directly for needs like food cultivation and space heating, or convert it into low-carbon, all-season electricity. Geothermal electricity plants actually perform best in cold climates, because they leverage the differential between the hot temperatures underground and cool temperatures at the surface.
Until recently, engineers could tap geothermal power only where hot rock and a naturally occurring water reservoir were relatively close to the surface. But new breakthroughs – hybrid drill bits that slice through granite, automated rigs that steer with surgical precision and closed-loop well designs that harvest heat without relying on underground water – have expanded the geological conditions where geothermal energy sources can be viable. …

20-22 October
In a Warming Arctic, a Fight Brews Over the Fabled Northwest Passage
The Inuit of the far north helped solve the mystery of a doomed 19th-century expedition. Now Canada needs them to strengthen its claim to this newly contested region.
(NYT) For centuries, death and disaster met those searching for the fabled Northwest Passage. The promise of a shorter sea lane between Europe and Asia, somewhere through the icelocked labyrinth of Canada’s Arctic Archipelago, lured explorers like Sir John Franklin to their doom.
Today, with sea ice melting fast, the Northwest Passage is open long enough to welcome thousands of tourists annually aboard large cruise ships. Nine are expected to dock this year at Gjoa Haven, an Inuit hamlet whose history is tied to the passage’s past and could help secure its future.
“The Northwest Passage goes through our communities, our land,” said Raymond Quqshuun, Gjoa Haven’s mayor.
As global warming makes the Arctic — and its immense natural resources — more accessible, it is fueling a superpower rivalry not seen since the Cold War. Russia is beefing up its military positions in the region, sometimes in cooperation with China, a self-described “near-Arctic state” that is also expanding commercial and scientific activities.
President Trump is threatening to annex Canada and force a sale of Greenland. He wants to build a $175 billion “Golden Dome” defense shield to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles flying over the Arctic.

16 September
Nations Aiming for Arctic Power Can’t Get Enough of These Ships
The US and Canada want more icebreakers to counter Russia and China in the Arctic, as the polar region — and competition for it — heats up.
(Bloomberg) At a shipyard in Finland last month, workers cut the first steel for a new icebreaker ship. Over the next three years, about 10,000 tons of the metal will go into the hull before the vessel is carried across the ocean to Quebec for completion.
The CCGS Arpatuuq, expected to launch in 2030, will be the first heavy icebreaker built — at least partly — in Canada in more than half a century. The C$3.3 billion ($2.4 billion) ship will be 139 meters (about 450 feet) long, with a helipad, hangar and room for 100 crew members. “Moon pools” located at midship will provide direct access to the Arctic Ocean for polar research and, potentially, military surveillance.
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 neighbor soured after US President Donald Trump threatened steep tariffs and insisted it should become the 51st state. That led Prime Minister Mark Carney to announce an additional C$9 billion in defense spending, emphasizing the ability to patrol and defend Arctic territory as crucial to Canada sovereignty.