Canada's Arctic

Harper announces army base, navy port to bolster Canada's Arctic claim
at 14:27 on August 10, 2007, EST.By ALEXANDER PANETTA

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is greeted by Arctic Rangers as he arrives in Resolute Bay joined by Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor, Friday. (CP PHOTO/ Fred Chartrand)
RESOLUTE BAY, Nu. (CP) - Canada will build two new military facilities within contested Arctic waters to bolster its sovereign claim over the fabled Northwest Passage, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Friday.
He said the Canadian Forces will install a new army training centre and a deepwater port at distant points of the Arctic archipelago that has been coveted for centuries as a possible trade route to Asia.
"Protecting national sovereignty, the integrity of our borders, is the first and foremost responsibility of a national government, a responsibility which has too often been neglected," Harper said, citing what he called the "first principle of Arctic sovereignty: use it or lose it."
The prime minister made the announcement barely 600 kilometres from the magnetic North Pole in one of the coldest settlements on Earth.
The frigid hamlet of Resolute Bay - with a mid-summer temperature of two degrees when Harper spoke - will be home to a new army training centre for cold-weather fighting that houses up to 100 military personnel.
The prime minister also announced that a new deepsea port will be built for navy and civilian purposes on the north end of Baffin Island, in the abandoned old zinc-mining village of Nanisivik.
Harper said both installations will help back up Canada's ownership claim to the waters and natural resources of the Northwest Passage - a claim disputed by countries including the United States, Japan, and the entire European Union.
Speaking in a storage shed protecting him against howling winds on a barren, rock-strewn highland, Harper said the announcements tell the world that Canada has a "real, growing, long-term presence in the Arctic."
The multimillion-dollar announcements stem from Conservative campaign commitments in the last election, and Harper's northern trip had been planned for months.
But they happen to coincide with Russia's dramatic move to place a flag underneath the North Pole while claiming the area's resources as its own.
And as he spoke, Danish scientists were preparing to head for the Arctic ice pack on Sunday seeking evidence to position Denmark in the race to claim the potentially vast oil and other resources of the North Pole region.
Harper also announced that the 4,100-member Canadian Rangers patrol will be increased by another 900 members.
He stood alongside Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor, who is expected to be moved in a cabinet shuffle early next week. A group of Rangers - the rifle-toting, Inuit volunteer force - were also on hand.
The prime minister flew in for the announcement as planned, even though the strong Arctic winds had kept his military aircraft grounded in Yellowknife overnight.
He cited the early 20th century novelist John Buchan - a future governor general, Lord Tweedsmuir - who wrote that Canada is a place where men face the primeval forces of nature and are made vigorous by a place so beautiful that it readily inspires one of the most priceless assets of a people: romantic patriotism.
Harper said Buchan's words ring just as true today in Canada's North.
"This remains a place where the principal forces of nature still hold sway, a place where men and women are braced into vigour by the huge trackless landscapes and the often harsh elements," he said.
"And a place so stunningly beautiful that no Canadian can experience it without feeling an overwhelming sense of romantic patriotism for our country."
He said even Canadians who have never been north of the 60th parallel feel it.
"It's embedded in our history, our literature, our art, our music and our Canadian soul," Harper said.
Canada's ownership claim to the waters has been all but ignored by other countries, due largely to the harshness of the barren, frigid climate in which maritime transportation remains impractical.
But with warming temperatures raising the prospect of increased resource exploitation and maritime traffic, the area has attracted renewed attention.
It's not known just how much mineral wealth and other resources lie beneath the archipelago's 36,500 islands and 1.4 million square kilometres - but Canada is eager to claim those riches as its own.
Harper was drawn into a verbal spat immediately after taking office last year after U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins restated his country's traditional view that Canada can have the islands, but the water is international territory.
The federal government also announced Friday:
-It will cost $4 million to refurbish existing federal buildings for the new army training school at Resolute Bay, and another $2 million a year to operate the centre. It will employ 12 full-time staff, and be used as a command centre and training facility for several dozen soldiers at a time. The government says it chose the site because of its location in the gateway to the High Arctic, and because it already houses some Defence and Natural Resources Canada facilities.
-The expanded Rangers program will cost $240 million over 20 years at an average of $12 million annually. The 60-year-old Rangers program will take on new patrol routes and modernize its equipment, which includes trademark red uniforms and antique rifles.
-The deepwater port will extend the range of military ships in the Arctic through the navigable season, which is roughly June to October.
The new port location, more than 1,000 nautical miles from the Arctic hub of Iqaluit, was chosen for its strategic location at the eastern entrance to the Northwest Passage.
Environmental studies are slated to begin next year and construction is expected to begin in 2010. The port is expected to become partly operational in 2012 and fully operational by 2015.
The initial construction cost for the port is pegged at up to $100 million, and operating and maintenance costs are projected to be $200 million over 20 years.
©The Canadian Press, 2007