Shipping along the Northwest Passage: A Historical Overview

Abstract

This chapter furnishes an overview history of booms and busts in Arctic shipping, with a focus on the bubbles created by successive defence and economic crises and opportunities in the twentieth century. The first significant non-Indigenous maritime activity centered on furs and whale oil. The Second World War and early Cold War saw fleets of American naval, coast guard and merchant marine vessels move into the region to construct installations. In the 1970s, resource extraction attracted the attention of southern companies, and the North seemed to be the next great development frontier. By the 1980s, surging oil and gas prices raised hopes for a bonanza, with government estimates forecasting hundreds of Arctic transits by resource carriers as early as the 1990s. Instead, fleets of icebreaking tankers remained on the drawing board at century’s end—where they remain today. In between these booms, Arctic shipping did not disappear, with community resupply and government operations continuing on a predictable basis.