Russia cutting into High Arctic tourism

AARON SPITZER

IQALUIT — Nunavut is losing tourism dollars to Russia in the high stakes business of taking tourists to the North Pole.

Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, more and more vacationers are choosing Russia as their departure point for sightseeing trips to the top of the world.

Now, High Arctic companies that once dominated the market have begun to feel the impact.

Aziz Kheraj, who runs the South Camp Inn in Resolute Bay, says Nunavut’s North Pole business isn’t exactly booming.

“Canada is now competing with the Russians,” Kheraj said. “To do it from the Russian side is far cheaper.”

Not many tourists travel to the pole in the average year — perhaps 100 by plane, and another 100 by icebreaker.

But the trips are so expensive that even a few tourists translates into big bucks for charter companies and northern businesses.

According to Robin Duberow, whose Seattle-based firm Arctic Odysseys pioneered North Pole sightseeing trips 25 years ago, his average client pays about $21,000 for a trip. Though the flight from Resolute Bay to the North Pole is the centerpiece of the tour, the weeklong package also includes visits to Grise Fiord, Beechey Island, and Qaanaaq, Greenland.

A tour group is usually composed of seven paying customers. Converted into cash, that’s $147,000.

Of that money, Duberow said, two-thirds is transferred to Northern businesses like the hotels in Resolute, and to the charter companies — First Air and Kenn Borek Air Ltd. — that do the actual flying.

As well, he said, the average client drops another $1,600 on Inuit arts and crafts in the communities they visit.

“The bottom line is operating costs. It’s cheaper, and money talks.”

— Aziz Kheraj

Some spend much more. Last year, when an Arctic Odysseys eco-tour passed through Cape Dorset, one tourist spent close to $40,000 buying carvings and prints, Duberow said.

Competition from Russia arose with the close of the Cold War, and has intensified in the last six or seven years.

The competition comes not just in the form of Russian-based flightseeing charters, which wing to the pole from the Siberian town of Khatanga, but also from Russian icebreakers, which sail north from the Russian city of Murmansk, or Svalbard in Norway.

In order to support pole flights, Russia each year carves a landing strip into floating sea ice about 80 kilometres south of the pole. Dubbed Ice Station Borneo, the base serves as a refueling and communications point, and offers housing and medical services to tourists, pilots and mechanics.

Perhaps 50 tourists per year pass through Borneo on their way to 90 degrees north, said Duberow. North Pole adventurers, such as skiers and dog-sled drivers, also take advantage of Borneo’s services.

And at least once a year, another 80-100 tourists take a three-week trip to the pole aboard the icebreaker Yamal, which used to ply the Arctic as part of the Soviet military’s northern fleet.

Travelling to the pole from Russia via either ice-breaker of plane costs sightseers about $16,000.

That’s about $5,000 cheaper than from the Canadian side.

Part of cost difference is due to the weaker currency in Russia, which has a less healthy economy than Canada.

As well, Duberow suggested, Russian trips may be cheaper because their planes aren’t maintained to Canadian standards and their pilots are less experienced.

But whatever the reason, with prices so much lower on the other side of the Arctic, Nunavut is seeing fewer pole-bound tourists.

“They’ve kind of slacked off the last couple years,” Duberow said.

And now, Russian-based charter planes seem to be expanding their operations into Nunavut.

Last month, for the first time, a group of tourists in Resolute Bay was picked up by a Russian plane, flown north to the pole, and then flown back to Resolute.

According to Aziz Kheraj, the shift of tourists to the other side of the pole will likely continue.

“Russia is doing it more on a commercial basis,” he said. “The bottom line is operating costs. It’s cheaper, and money talks.”