Climate change and mining boost Nunavut sealift

Sealift season is underway in Nunavut and Nunavik, where operators are expecting to set new records for cargo delivery. Here, a cargo ship sits off Iqaluit July 10. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS

Arctic sealift operators say they expect another record-breaking year as the 2011 delivery season ramps up across the North.

Joint venture carriers Nunavut Sealift and Supply Inc., a partnership of Transport Desgagnes Inc. and Arctic Co-operatives Limited, and Nunavut Eastern Arctic Shipping, a partnership between Nunavut Umiaq Corp, whose partners include three regional Inuit development corporations and Transport Nanuk Inc., say they transported more cargo in 2010 than ever before – and both expect a repeat in 2011.

“2010 was a peak year, so it’s not necessarily representative,” said NSSI’s assistant manager of operations and sales François Gaudreau. “But the quantity of cargo is increasing every year, there is no doubt.”

Starting in early July, communities in Nunavut and Nunavik began to receive their annual re-supply of goods, from construction materials and vehicles to non-perishable food.

And one of the environmental factors that has had a mostly negative impact on the Arctic is working in favour of maritime transport: sealift operators in the Arctic say they’re making gradual gains from the impact of climate change, which means earlier ice break-up and a lengthened shipping season.

Gaudreau said NSSI vessels were loaded June 14 this year, roughly 10 days earlier than a decade ago.

“We’re loading our vessels earlier than we used to — that’s a fact,” he said. “There’s always ice during the vessel’s first voyage, but it’s manageable.”

During the season’s first voyages, Gaudreau says vessels must sometimes re-route due to ice, but that it hasn’t created hazards or delays to date this year.

Longer seasons mean that some of NSSI’s vessels can do four sailings a year, instead of only three.

So far this season, sailings to Kuujjuaq and up Ungava Bay have been “very successful,” he said.

But the company doesn’t take early summer travel lightly.

“We still have to be very cautious,” he said. “We’re due in Baker Lake in a couple of days and apparently the lake is not ice-free yet.”

Suzanne Paquin, president and chief executive officer of NEAS, said the early break-up of sea ice has had a “definite impact on our business.”

All four of NEAS’s vessels left port a few days earlier this year than in 2010, and all four are expected to do three voyages before the winter, she said.

As for NSSI, Gaudreau said NSSI, whose five vessels serve Nunavik and the Western and Eastern Arctic, has benefited from an increase in mining.

NSSI’s contracts with Agnico-Eagle, Newmont and smaller mining exploration camps have provided a huge boost to its business, Gaudreau said.

And NSSI just opened a new office in Winnipeg to better serve its western customers, he said.

As well, NSSI began loading vessels from the port in Churchill, Manitoba for the first time this season. All of its Churchill cargo is destined for stops in the nearby Kivalliq region under a Government of Nunavut contract.

NEAS also enjoyed one of its best seasons in 2010, moving 180,000 cubic metres of cargo to 48 communities, Paquin said.

This year, NEAS is making efforts to increase its service to make delivery more efficient, she said said.

That includes a new online reservation system for customers to place their orders, as well as new barges for faster discharges in the communities.

NEAS continues to encourage local Inuit employment and provide training opportunities, Paquin said: in 2010, its vessels employed Inuit deckhands, while the business is in the process of hiring a new Iqaluit-based customer coordinator.

Up for this year: the GN contracts for sealift services for different regions of Nunavut that will expire this year. NEAS and NSSI each have a share of these contracts.

The tender process for new five-year sealift contracts will begin early this fall, said Mark McCulloch, the GN’s senior manager of procurement and logistics.

Compared to mining company contracts, the GN is not among the largest sealift customers in the region, McCulloch said, but it does play an important role in delivery to Nunavut.

That’s because the GN’s annual sealift order establishes a ceiling for the price of goods purchased by any single sealift customer in Nunavut. It also sets a schedule for guaranteed delivery to communities across the territory.

Last week in Iqaluit, Frobisher Bay was busy with barges ferrying sealift goods into the community.

The impact in the city includes the start-up of many construction projects and the arrival of new cars and trucks, as well as empty crates at the side of the road and weekend garage sales, where residents clear out old gear to make room for the new.