Canada Gets Creative on Arctic Sovereignty

Hunters kill 3% of polar bears each year

(NEWSER) - World leaders meet tomorrow in Norway to consider reducing polar bear hunting, reports the Independent. Conservation organizations estimate the polar bear population, particularly hard hit by global warming, will drop two-thirds to the brink of extinction over the next 50 years. Greenland, the US and Russia permit hunting by Inuit natives, and Canada also allows hunting by sportsmen. The hunts claim 700 polar bears annually, 3% of the total population. Critics consider such hunts "unsustainable harvests." More»

Expedition joins scramble to lay claim to the Arctic

(NEWSER) - Diving into the international scramble to grab parts of the Arctic, a US Coast Guard cutter is voyaging north this week to determine if any of the underwater territory can be claimed for America. The four-week expedition, which starts Friday, will use sonar technology to map the northern Chukchi Cap, an underwater plateau which extends from Alaska. More»

Rich oil and gas reserves lie beneath ownership dispute

(NEWSER) - Russian ships will arrive at the North Pole today as part of Moscow's effort to claim a 1,240-mile area of the Arctic—and with it, more than $2 trillion in oil and gas reserves. The Telegraph reports that the fleet will deposit a Russian flag at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean in a symbolic assertion of underwater ownership. More»

With eye on energy-rich seabed, submarines make test dive

(NEWSER) - In a race to claim rich natural resources under the North Pole, two Russian submarines successfully dove several thousand feet in Russia's northern territorial waters today, Reuters reported. Though US and Russian subs have long plied the waters under the pole, none has reached the seabed there, at a depth of more than 13,000 feet. More»

(USER SUBMITTED) - Russian bombers have once again put Canada to the test, this time while the Canadian prime minister was visiting the Great North to affirm sovereignty in the Arctic. Two CF-18s were launched yesterday to intercept the Russian bombers as they approached Canadian airspace, some 30 nautical miles off Inuvik, in the Northwest Territories. The Canadian fighter jets shadowed the Russian "bears" until they turned around. More»