Daily BrewCrystal Serenity’s Northwest Passage cruise opens door to more big ships and is a concern
It is the final resting place of the lost Franklin expedition and one of the last truly pristine landscapes on Earth, where polar bears outnumber people.
And thanks to global warming, Canada’s Northwest Passage is the latest cruise destination for the well-heeled adventurer.
The luxury Crystal Serenity cruise ship left Anchorage, Alaska, on Tuesday with 1,000 such souls on board for its maiden voyage through the Arctic route.
While not the first tourist ship through the notorious passage, the Crystal Serenity is by far the largest and most expensive to set forth.
Billed at the “ultimate expedition for the true explorer,” the 32-day cruise to New York City costs a whopping US$21,855 per person.
“The Northwest Passage is not as remote as one might expect,” says Molly Morgan, spokeswoman for Crystal Cruises.
The ship will pass many communities, including one with regular commercial jet service, she says, and the transit is taking place during the time of year when ice concentration is minimal.
“Anticipated ice conditions for this voyage are within safe operating parameters for Crystal Serenity,” she says in an email to Yahoo Canada News.
The ship has two Canadian ice pilots on board and is accompanied by the ice-class vessel RRS Ernest Shackleton, with two helicopters on board, for any emergencies in addition to sightseeing. The Crystal Serenity has additional, specially trained crew and has been equipped with forward-looking sonar and a thermal imaging camera to detect ice.
“This technology is not typically found on cruise ships and represents the best possible preventive measures to detect any unforeseen anomalies along the ship’s path,” Morgan says.
A total of 25 vessels traversed the full Northwest Passage in 2015, shy of the record 31 that made the trip in 2012, according to the Canadian Coast Guard. Four were Canadian Coast Guard or federal government vessels and two more were foreign government ships.
The rest were private adventure vessels, including two passenger ships.
“I’m not so concerned about this particular voyage. What I’m concerned about is that it opens the door to a lot more large ships in future years,” says Michael Byers, the UBC-based Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law and author of “Who Owns the Arctic?”
Regent, which is owned by Norwegian Cruise Line, has already said it will add a passage cruise to its itinerary next year.
“It’s only a matter of time before Disney and Costa and all of the other large cruise lines start to do the same and it’s the long-term environmental consequences and risks that I’m concerned about,” Byers tells Yahoo Canada News.
A large passenger ship carries one million litres of fuel oil.
“If you start to have dozens of cruise ships sailing the Northwest Passage, at some point, inevitably, you’ll have an accident and possibly a significant oil spill,” he says.
In that environment, “the possibility of any kind of cleanup is remote.”
‘A false sense of optimism’
Kevin Hill, regional spokesman for Fisheries and Oceans Canada, says Crystal Cruises has been meeting with Coast Guard and other federal officials since 2014 to prepare for this voyage.
“The Canadian Coast Guard will continue to work with Crystal Cruises to provide additional advice and information as may be required leading up to and during their planned transit,” he says.
The Coast Guard has eyes on the Arctic around the clock for all sizes of vessels.
“Through our Marine Communications and Traffic Services Centre in Iqaluit, the Canadian Coast Guard will monitor the voyage daily while it moves through the Northwest Passage.”
A study published last September by researchers at Environment Canada and York University warned that ice in the passage remains thick and unpredictable, even in summer.
“Shipping through the [Northwest Passage] should not be taken lightly,” it says, suggesting that the route will not be easily navigable for another 40 years or more.
A May 2015 report for the government of the Northwest Territories came to much the same conclusion.
Citing the Canadian Ice Service, it says “…predictions of an ice-free Arctic may lead many into a false sense of optimism regarding the ease of future shipping.”
Another problem is the lack of laws in place to deal with the influx, owed to an ongoing dispute between the United States and Canada, says Byers. The federal government hasn’t even designated shipping lanes in the region, he says.
“The Crystal Serenity is essentially a wake-up call for Justin Trudeau to initiate negotiations with the United States to find some solution to that legal dispute so that Canada can actually adopt meaningful, necessary environmental laws,” he says.
The cruise is scheduled to stop in Ulukhaktok, N.W.T, on Aug. 27. After that, there are stops planned in Cambridge Bay and Pond Inlet, Nunavut, before the ship crosses the Davis Strait to Greenland then back down the Atlantic coast to New York by Sept. 17.
