Maine makes bid to host Arctic Council meeting

U.S. Senator Angus King of Maine, right, speaks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, left, on their way to the April 24 Arctic Council ministerial in Iqaluit. (HANDOUT PHOTO)

The Port of Maine is one of the world’s largest man-made harbours. (PHOTO FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS)

Here’s an example of continental drift, 21st century-style: the state of Maine, located on the northeastern Atlantic coastline of the United States, far from the Arctic Circle, is looking to play a larger role in the Arctic and the Arctic Council under the U.S. chairmanship of this Arctic forum.

To that end, the city of Portland, Maine, population 66,000, located 2,235 kilometres south of Iqaluit and 7,301 km from Fairbanks, Alaska, wants to host an October 2016 meeting on how to protect the Arctic marine environment.

Such a meeting would attract about 200 Senior Arctic Officials, Arctic indigenous permanent participants, scientists and observers to Portland — instead of to Alaska, the American foothold in the Arctic.

Not everyone agrees with this option.

“I don’t like the idea of meeting outside of Alaska. Actually, I didn’t like the idea of meeting outside of the Arctic, i.e., Fairbanks, Anchorage and Juneau,” Jimmy Stotts, Alaska’s president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, told Nunatsiaq News. The ICC is one of the Arctic Council’s six permanent participant organizations.

But the bid by Maine, better known for its lobsters than for any Arctic connection, to seek more involvement in the Arctic Council appears to have little to do with geography and everything to do with economics, and a desire to make the Arctic better-known to Americans.

“Canadians may have misconceptions about the Arctic,” said Sara French, senior policy analyst at the Gordon Foundation, whose recent survey found overall low awareness of the Arctic Council. “But they know about it.”

A meeting in Maine could help the U.S. with their “huge getting-up-to-speed issue” on the Arctic and the Arctic Council, she said and, at the same time, open up economic doors.

Angus King, an independent U.S. senator for Maine, explained Maine’s Arctic interest this way in a statement released after he accompanied Secretary of State John Kerry to Iqaluit for the May 15 ministerial meeting: “as one of the closest American trade hubs [with the Arctic], Maine will play a central role… as commercial, cultural, and educational exchanges increase in the coming years.”

“Maine has already started looking north,” said King in an earlier statement on his website. King helped found an Arctic Caucus in the U.S. Senate.

Portland has a large man-made harbour and it appears promoting the harbour, as a gateway for Arctic shipping, is key to its political attraction as an Arctic Council meeting location.

“Maine is merely an example of how this nation can lead alongside Alaska in Arctic affairs. First, opening lines of trade that allow for mutual prosperity, and then building on top of these trade lanes policies and opportunities for cultural and educational exchange that lead to lasting relationships,” said Patrick Arnold, of the Maine Port Authority, at a Senate committee meeting in March.

“This will be important given the rapid change in Arctic conditions due to climate change.”

If climate change makes the Northwest Passage more navigable, Portland could become a strategic departure point or first point of entry for ships travelling through Canada’s High Arctic islands.

Portland has already forged economic ties with the Icelandic shipping company, Eimskip, which moved its North American headquarters to Portland in 2013 and which links the U.S with Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Norway and Russia.

As well, the Maine Maritime Academy, located in Portland, has received money from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Science and Technology Directorate for the development and delivery of maritime ice navigation and first responder courses.

In Maine’s favour as a meeting site: the cost of travel to Portland, which is much lower than equivalent costs to Arctic locations chosen under Canada’s Arctic Council chairmanship. Those meeting places were referred to as “remote locations in the Canadian Arctic that are difficult and expensive to reach for delegates traveling from different parts of the world,” in a recent article in the Portland Press Herald.

Portland also can lay claim to some prestigious polar history: Robert Peary, a graduate of Portland High School and Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, is credited as being the first person to reach the North Pole in 1909.

To scout out today’s Portland, State Department officials recently visited the city and noted Arctic Council visitors’ attractions could include the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum at Bowdoin College — and a lobster bake at a nearby island.

Arctic political observer Mikå Mered, of Polarisk Analytics, says an SAO meeting in Maine would be fine, “even if some in Alaska won’t be happy with this.”

And, while Maine is by no means an “Arctic territory,” of all the lower 48 states in the U.S., “it is the one that will benefit the most from Arctic economic development,” he said.

It’s a long way from Maine to the Arctic, as this Google-generated map showing Portland, Maine (A) and Fairbanks, Alaska (B), shows.