Cannon visits remote “ice camp” to back Arctic sovereignty efforts

It’s one of the most remote parts of the country, but it could be the key to a massive Arctic territorial claim by Canada.

Foreign Affairs minister Lawrence Cannon travelled this week to the High Arctic to visit an “ice camp” on the remote Borden Island, which straddles the Nunavut-Northwest territories border.

There, a team of scientists is using remote-controlled underwater vehicles to study the Arctic seafloor. Canada will the use the data to bolster its claims to extended undersea territory in the Arctic Ocean in a submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf planned for December 2013.

“At some point, there will be another line on the map of Canada showing the outer limits of the extended continental shelf. The staff of the Borden Island camp are among those who will have helped to put that new line on the map,” Cannon said in a statement.

Arctic countries are scrambling to assemble evidence for their claims in order to stake out control over chunks of Arctic Ocean seafloor, which are thought to be rich with oil and natural gas.

The camp is a joint operation of the Geographic Survey of Canada, the Canadian Hydrographic Service, Defence Research and Development Canada and the Canadian Ice Service.

Canada and Russia both continue to map the sea floor of the Arctic Ocean as part of bids to increase their offshore territory in the region.

The RIA Novosti news service reported last week that Russia will spend around $50 million US this year on continental shelf mapping projects.