Fog/coastline

[Drum Music]

00:00

Man playing drum and singing

TRACY BOWDEN: Canada's far north is a vast and remote expanse. A starkly beautiful land.

00:16

Inuksuk figures on hill

These traditional stone figures, inuksuk, have become a symbol of the region.

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It's one of the few relatively untouched places left on the globe, with a sparse population, but enormous riches.

00:45

Man playing drum and singing

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Inuksuk figures/ravens

00:58

PROFESSOR DONAT PHARAND: It's difficult to explain.

01:9

Prof. Pharand

There is something special, something emotional and sentimental about the Arctic for Canadians.

01:11

PROFESSOR ROB HUEBERT:  There's something about the ethos, about the arctic that has

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Prof  Huebert

always fired our imaginations.

01:26

Coastline

SHEILA WATT-CLOUTIER: It's a lovely, lovely majestic place. Yeah, it's beautiful,

01:30

Bowden and Watt-Cloutier

it just remains constantly beautiful.

01:37

Cloudy coastline/flora

Music

01:41

Fast flowing river

TRACY BOWDEN: It's summer, and here in the southern arctic the ice has melted, though there's still snow on the distant mountains.

01:52

Iqaluit town shots

For just a few months towns like Iqaluit on Baffin Island, the capital of the territory of Nunavut, are accessible by sea.

02:01

RADIO ANNOUNCER: And now CKIQ news headlines.  It's 7 degrees in Rankin inlet and 9 degrees in Iqaluit at 8am. I'm Kent Driskell with your CKIQ news.

02:14

TRACY BOWDEN: But there is renewed interest in the arctic and its buried treasure, which includes potentially huge reserves of oil and gas.

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To protect it, these clear skies and pristine waters are experiencing something of an invasion.

02:34

Montage military action advertisement

Music

02:40

ANNOUNCER: Integrated as never before our Canadian forces are better suited to meet the current defence needs of our country and this continent. A more relevant force in the new international security environment.

02:49

TRACY BOWDEN: Historically, the Canadian military has focused its patrols on the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Atlantic to the east. It has all but ignored the arctic. Now it's also flexing its muscles here.

03:01

ANNOUNCER: Joint Task Force North, ready to protect and defend Canadians at home.

03:15

Whitecross. Super:
Brigadier-General Christine Whitecross
Commander, Joint Task Force (North)

BRIGADIER GENERAL WHITECROSS: We used to call Canada coast to coast, now we call it coast to coast to coast, because we are really looking at three oceans. It is going to be a three ocean navy certainly for most part of the year.

03:25

Montage. Military action

Music

03:35

TRACY BOWDEN: 700 army, navy and air force personnel, plus a special unit of Inuit rangers, are taking part in this 10 day, three million dollar exercise.

03:40

Operation Nanook, the native word for polar bear is part of a series of initiatives aimed at sending a message about Canada's sovereignty in the north.

03:52

Harper making speech

STEPHEN HARPER: Canada's new government understands the first principle of arctic sovereignty; use it or lose it.

04:04

TRACY BOWDEN: The Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who campaigned for election on a platform of protecting the north,

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Harper getting of military plane

is aware of the potential economic threat from the Russians, the Europeans and even the Americans.

04:15

Harper on ship

During a three day visit to the region he announces the construction of several polar class patrol ships and a deep water port in the arctic.

STEPHEN HARPER: The arctic archipelago is

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Harper making speech. Super: Stephen Harper
Prime Minister, Canada

an integral indivisible part of the true north strong and free. And that we will not compromise the defence or the sovereignty of Canadian territory.

04:34

Military marching/ Barbecue

Music

04:42

TRACY BOWDEN: About six thousand people live in Iqaluit and they welcome the troops. They know that their land and their way of life need protecting.

04:51

Canadian Rangers in boat

TRACY BOWDEN: The Canadian Rangers, in their brightly-coloured sweatshirts, are part-time reservists who patrol Canada's most remote regions.

05:12

Omik with Bowden

Sam Omik joined 20 years ago. 

05:23

SAM OMIK: We know it better than the army since this is our land. Also we can look after ourselves very well, because we know the weather and arctic climate, the land and the seas.

BRIGADIER GENERAL WHITECROSS:  The rangers

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Whitecross

are the most unique people that I have ever met.

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Rangers

They bring to us knowledge of the wildlife, knowledge of hunting of fishing, of how to sustain yourself. What they provide us is the ability to live in the north.

05:54

Arctic landscape

Music

06:08

TRACY BOWDEN: This is what the far north looks like for most of the year. A magnificent but brutal frozen land accessible only by powerful icebreakers. But local knowledge and science agree the arctic is not what it used to be.

06:17

Bowden with Watt-Cloutier

SHEILA WATT-CLOUTIER : The arctic first of all is so misunderstood or not well understood  for its majestic energy, but really even  in political, geopolitical terms, its global significance. 

06:40

TRACY BOWDEN:  And you are seeing it change ?

SHEILA WATT CLOUTIER: Oh yes, very much so, yeah.

TRACY BOWDEN:  For the first ten years of her life noted environmentalist Sheila Watt-Cloutier travelled by dog sled;

06:52

now she is watching her fragile backyard change at a rapid pace.

SHEILA WATT-CLOUTIER: With our hunters on the land and the rangers on the land,

07:02

Super: Sheila Watt-Cloutier
Inuit activist

we become the sentinels, we become the first line of defence, the guards so to speak, for the rest of the world. As we protect our way of life we protect it for the planet.

07:10

Bowden walks with Huebert

DR ROB HUEBERT: One of the biggest challenges the Canadian military is facing is the fact that the arctic is a very difficult environment.

07:24

TRACY BOWDEN:  Political scientist, Dr Rob Huebert, has been invited by the military to observe this week's exercises. 

DR ROB HUEBERT: The arctic is warming,

07:31

Huebert. Super: Professor Rob Huebert
Department of Political Science
University of Calgary

and with that warming is coming both the reality and the perception of accessibility.

07:40

So, as a result we see all the arctic nations, we see major industrial corporations now waking up to the fact that there is going to be tremendous economic opportunity within the arctic.

07:47

Aerial. North West Passage

TRACY BOWDEN:  One of those opportunities involves an international shipping route through the northwest passage.

08:02

Satellite images showing North West Passage

The northwest passage connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans across northern Canada, but up until now, it's been mostly blocked by ice, even in summer.

08:10

But the latest satellite images show that the passage is fully clear of ice for the first time since monitoring began in 1978.

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The areas coloured dark grey are ice free and these animations from the European Space Agency show the extent of the changes, just in the past few years.

08:32

Aerial. North West Passage

If the ice melt continues, shipping times between Europe and Asia could be dramatically shortened, but there's already a fight over the legal status of the north west passage.

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PROFESSOR DONAT PHARAND: Canada considers all of the waters within the Canadian arctic archipelago

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Pharand. Super:  Donat Pharand
Professor Emeritus University of Ottawa

to be internal waters of Canada, in my humble opinion rightly so, and through those waters there is no right of passage in favour of foreign ships.

09:05

TRACY BOWDEN:  Professor emeritus Donat Pharand  is considered the leading expert on legal issues in the arctic, and has written several books on the subject.

09:22

PROFESSOR DONAT PHARAND: It doesn't mean that Canada is not going to let foreign ships through. On the contrary, the only thing Canada wants is foreign ships, particularly American's, but any foreign ship, to ask permission.

03:33

US embassy

TRACY BOWDEN: Over at the US embassy in Ottawa, Ambassador David Wilkins has a different view.

09:48

Wilkins. Super:  David Wilkins
US Ambassador to Canada

DAVID WILKINS: We are simply saying that the north west passage, if and when it is navigable, is a strait to be used for international navigation, pure and simple.

09:54

TRACY BOWDEN: Now you know that Canada argues it is not an international strait?

10:03

DAVID WILKINS: Well we understand that and we do not agree with Canadian claims that it is internal waters. But this really is not a dispute between the US and Canada, this is a dispute between Canada and the world.  

10:08

Aerial. Arctic file footage

TRACY BOWDEN: The other issue under dispute is the one million square kilometres of seabed under the Arctic Ocean near the north pole, which is thought to contain large oil and gas reserves. Jurisdiction over the seabed is regulated by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ratified by Canada, Russia, Denmark and Norway but not yet the US. Each nation hopes to prove that the seabed is an extension of its continental shelf.

10:22

File footage Russian expedition

A recent Russian scientific expedition to the arctic even sent a submarine to plant the Russian Flag in the seabed, an exercise greeted with scorn by the other claimants.

10:55

Wilkins

DAVID WILKINS: Well obviously it was a public relations effort by them, but it has no planting of a flag on a seabed has no real legal effect, and is not recognised as having a legal effect by any of the countries.

11:07

Pharand. Super: Donat Pharand
Professor Emeritus University of Ottawa

PROFESSOR DONAT PHARAND: This is strictly symbolic, and the Russians themselves, the Foreign Minister just last week, the Foreign Minister of Russia said, the purpose of going down four thousand, a little over four thousand meters, was not to plant a flag and leave a message in a bottle. No. The main purpose was to determine, and or confirm, that their continental shelf, geologically, goes right up to the north pole.

11:20

Bowden walks with Watt-Cloutier

SHEILA WATT-CLOUTIER: I have a relationship with this view, a partnership, it protects me as I protect it.  I come home and I exhale because this view is so beautiful and so strong and wise.

12:03

TRACY BOWDEN: Nobel peace prize nominee Sheila Watt-Cloutier travels the world trying to protect the north and its people. 

12:17

TRACY BOWDEN: The Prime Minister has certainly been very vocal about protecting the sovereignty of the north, maintaining control in the region, do you feel confident that that is more than just talk and that could make a difference?

SHEILA WATT CLOUTIER: It's interesting

12:26

Watt-Cloutier. Super:
Sheila Watt-Cloutier
Inuit activist

that it takes Russia and other countries to come and start to claim the arctic seabed as their own for our own government to take this kind of quick action. I am hoping that it is genuine, it is authentic and they are going to do the right thing and work with the Inuit communities in ensuring that this is Canadian waters.

12:40

Chopper heading out to island

Music

13:02

TRACY BOWDEN: Only by travelling out across the archipelago do you get a sense of just how remote this disputed territory is. Far into the distance, nothing but ocean and islands.

13:12

Bowden on island with ranger and army

Observation posts are set up on uninhabited dots of land throughout the region, with rangers and other Canadian troops conducting surveillance when they can. On this day, in this weather, it doesn't look like there's much here to fight over. But a scramble for mineral resources by rival nations could spiral into not so much a cold war,

13:30

Canadian flag

as a real one.

PROFESSOR ROB HUEBERT: The worst case scenario is

13:54

Huebert. Super: 
Professor Rob Huebert
Department of Political Science
University of Calgary

clearly one of a regional area where hostilities are the norm and cooperation are the exception.

13:59

Harper and George Bush at talks

TRACY BOWDEN: Neighbours Canada and the US are holding firm to their opposing positions on the Northwest passage.

14:09

At recent talks between the countries leaders, both sides reiterated their stance.

14:16

Harper. Super: Stephen Harper
Prime Minister, Canada

STEPHEN HARPER: Canada as you know is fully committed to strengthening its arctic sovereignty on every level, not just military, but economic, social, environmental.

14:22

Super: August 21, 2007

GEORGE BUSH: We'll manage the differences because there are differences on

14:32

Super:  George W Bush
President, USA

the North West passage, we believe it is an international passageway. Having said that the United States does not question Canadian sovereignty over its arctic islands, and the United States supports Canadian investments that have been made to exercise its sovereignty.

14:37

TRACY BOWDEN: But many Canadians don't put much faith in the words. They believe there truly is a threat to the nation's control over its north and that the current show of strength is vital, and overdue.

PROFESSOR DONAT PHARAND:   If Canada does not develop

15:16

Pharand.

the necessary control, effective control over the waters which it claims to be hers and hers alone,

15:37

Shipping

then with the passing of time and with the increase in international maritime traffic, the North West Passage could become an international strait in the strict legal sense of the term.

15:51

Meaning that all ships including war ships and submarines, would have a right of passage and that is not something which Canada should take lightly.

16:10

Man beating drum

Music

16:23

TRACY BOWDEN: The arctic nations plan a summit meeting next year to discuss the future of the region. In the meantime it's fair to forecast frosty relations between the main stake-holders here at the top of the world.

13:37

Credits:

Reporter: Tracy Bowden

Camera: Timothy Bates

Editor: Bryan Milliss

Researcher/Producer : Richard Reynolds

17:00