New polar icebreakers to carry Inuit names, minister announces

When the Canadian Coast Guard’s two newest polar icebreakers go into service over the next decade, they’ll take to the water bearing Inuktut placenames.

The CCGS Arpatuuq will be named for Akpatok Island in Ungava Bay, home to thousands of seabirds, while the CCGS Imnaryuaq’s name refers to an area at the southern end of Banks Island known as “big cliff,” which is culturally significant to Inuvialuit.

“Naming these vessels after significant Inuit locations signifies profound respect and is an important step along the path of reconciliation,” said Diane Lebouthillier, the federal minister of fisheries, oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, at a ceremony in Iqaluit to announce the new ship names on Monday.

She said the coast guard worked with Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, Canada’s national Inuit organization, to select the ships’ names. When they’re in operation, they will be the largest polar icebreakers in the coast guard fleet.

The federal government’s polar icebreaker project was announced in 2021 and expected to cost $8.5 billion, according to a June 28 report from the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

Work on the CCGS Arpatuuq is underway at Seaspan’s Vancouver shipyard and the vessel is expected to be delivered by 2030. The CCGS Imnaryuaq will be built at the Chantier Davie shipyard near Montreal, with no delivery date set yet.

Coast guard icebreakers are vital for providing national security in the Arctic and keeping the waters clear for sealift shipping to northern communities.

“To carry out these functions it needs a state-of-the-art fleet that’s modern, nimble and capable of handling emerging maritime safety and security challenges,” said Lebouthillier, who delivered her speech in French.

Currently, the coast guard employs an average of seven polar icebreakers per season in the Arctic and the addition of two more will be welcome, said Youssef Mani, assistant commissioner for the Canadian Coast Guard in the Arctic region, in an interview.

He acknowledged the coast guard’s total fleet of about a dozen icebreakers is aging.

“So this for sure will have an impact not by replacement but by taking over some of the work that maybe an icebreaker is doing while another one is going” for maintenance to extend its lifespan.

Noting the Arctic is warming at four times the global average, Lebouthillier also announced that for the second year the Canadian Hydrographic Service will conduct underwater surveying in the Arctic to collect data on the changing environment, supported by Iqaluit-based marine and underwater services company Sedna ROV.

A seven-member crew from the service will depart Iqaluit on Aug. 26 aboard the CCGS Polar Prince for about 50 days to carry out that work, said Chris Marshall, director of hydrography for the hydrographic service in the central and Arctic regions.

“While we’re out on the ocean we’re using sonar to map the ocean floor,” he said.

“That data is critical to allow us to produce modern, accurate navigation charts because many parts of the Arctic, while they are charted, the quality of those charts is not very accurate.”

In places, the ocean floor can be 1,500 to 2,000 metres deep.

“However, we’re most interested in those areas 40 or 50 metres or shallower where there is potential hazards to navigation and we don’t know what’s there. The sonar allows us to have a complete picture of the ocean floor.”

That information is useful to operators of tankers and large vessels as well as local people for hunting and fishing.

Through its community hydrography program, the hydrographic service works with people in northern communities so they can help with the mapping process.

“We are equipping them,” said Marshall, “and we are training them using their local vessels to expand into those shallow areas where it’s very difficult for us to survey with the size of the vessels we use.”