Nome, Alaska, with a population of 3,600 including myself, is one of the most remote places in North America. Totally disconnected from the mainland’s road network, it has two gas stations, two pizzerias, a dozen groups of sled dogs, and no traffic. Lights. And soon, the small port of Nome, located at the top of the Pacific Ocean, will be able to accommodate any U. S. military shipment smaller than an aircraft carrier.
With the investment of the 2021 two-component infrastructure law, the Army Corps of Engineers allocated $250 million last year to build the northernmost deepwater port in the United States. Spending a small fortune to turn Nome into a fully stocked naval rest domain is emblematic of a larger trend that is reshaping the Far North. An unprecedented infrastructure boom, made imaginable in part by global warming, is turning the region into an increasingly militarized and commercial landscape, where herbal resource extraction and environmental degradation are accelerating in tandem.
This isn’t the first time the federal government has tried to build a deep-water port in remote Alaska. In the 1950s, the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission surveyed the country for artistic tactics for using nuclear bombs in infrastructure allocations. Proposals included bombing the Earth to make way for roads, rail tactics, mines and canals, as well as detonating buried nuclear explosives to extract oil and fuel from shale formations (nuclear fracking). One task proposed using a handful of nuclear bombs, each more than six times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, to dig a harbor at a site 400 kilometers north of Nome. More than half a century after the commission was abandoned, the United States nevertheless obtained its deep-water port in the Far North.
Similar stories resonate across the Arctic today. Chinese and Australian mining corporations are exploring Greenland in search of rare lands. In Russia, President Vladimir Putin has led a major investment program in the Arctic, in an attempt to lessen the Russian economy’s dependence on Europe by turning to Asia. For years, Russia has been beefing up its fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers, hoping to keep the Northern Sea Route open year-round to bring liquefied herbaceous fuel to Asian markets across the Arctic Ocean. In Alaska, the Department of Defense has just awarded a $38 million grant to a disruptive graphite mine near Nome, available only via helicopters and near the town of Iñupiaq de Teller.
To some extent, history repeats itself. The Arctic has been a resource frontier for centuries. Before fossil fuels were widely used in the late 19th century, whales were slaughtered for their blubber, the main fuel used in oil lamps in Europe and North America. . When giant whales were wiped out in temperate waters, whalers headed to the Arctic and Southern oceans. A few decades later, the Arctic was the scene of a series of gold rushes. In the 20th century, the discovery of oil and fuel in the Far North generated waves of investment. During the Cold War, military installations were built but later abandoned, with the addition of the disused radar station overlooking the port of Nome.
Far from being a pristine landscape, the Arctic is full of evidence of this history. Rusty mining equipment, spilled toxins, and deserted locomotives are everywhere, if you know where to look. The Yukon River, which flows 2,000 miles from Canada west of Alaska, dumps up to five tons of mercury a year into the North Pacific, remnants of a gold rush that ended more than a century ago. On St. Lawrence Island, not far from Nome, 180,000 gallons of diesel were spilled on a Cold War-era army. base in 1969, destroying a Siberian Yupik hunting and fishing camp.
But this recent race to the Arctic is decidedly different from past ones, as it moves farther north and seeks other resources. I spoke with Rick Thomen, a meteorological scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who enjoys some celebrity in the state. In a sense,” he told me, “we can say that the rise of the structure is entirely due to climate change. “
Projects that were unsuccessful in the 20th century are now proving to be beneficial. This is especially true as sea ice recedes and thins, offering longer periods when the oceans are navigable. The outdoor sea in Nome is still frozen for several months each year. winter, but the ice comes later and melts sooner. According to Thomen, projects such as the expansion of the port of Nome are committed to the continuation of global warming; There is “near certainty that in the coming decades, the open water season will extend beyond what it is lately. “
Discussions on shipping in the Arctic are concentrated on the Northern Sea Route (over Asia) or the Northwest Passage (over North America). Depending on the situations and destinations, those itineraries can save several days of sailing compared to trips through the Suez Canal or Panama Canal. .
But when I broached this topic with Mia Bennett, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Washington, she warned me not to look at Arctic transit routes as the main story. “Most importantly,” he told me, “the increased marine accessibility makes it less difficult to ship to destinations in the Arctic, which means it’s less difficult for shipments to enter and market Arctic resources. This is where the interests of investors lie, who employ the Arctic as a shortcut for container shipping between Asia and Europe.
Less sea ice means that a mining or fossil fuel operation may have to open up water for long periods of summer, winter and fall, whereas in the 20th century, sea ice may have only supplied for a few months of the year. Beyond two decades, there has been a huge increase in maritime traffic in the Far North. In 1998, only two ships sailed through the Northwest Passage. In 2023, 42 ships made the trip.
While Alaska politicians are quick to trumpet the economic benefits of the infrastructure boom, the truth is more contradictory. “The investment is going to where it’s been in the economic history of the Arctic, which is to the extraction sites,” Bennett told me. Bennett noted that while climate substitution is partly to blame for new development, the structural frenzy has followed a centuries-old trend of asymmetric development. There is still a lot of underinvestment in infrastructure that serves local purposes, whether it be hospitals, schools, [and] especially higher education establishments in the North. “
Along with the struggle to reclaim natural resources and identify a military presence, climate change demands some other infrastructure boom, for northern communities that are among the most climate-vulnerable in North America. The Bureau of Indian Affairs estimates that infrastructure in Alaska Native villages will claim at least $4 billion over the next half-century. As the Nome Harbor assignment gets final approvals to begin construction next year, neighboring Alaska Native villages, such as Shaktoolik and Shishmaref, are scrambling to get federal assistance to bolster coastal defenses or move to the upper ground.
Back in Nome, I see that there is a mixture of impatience and apprehension about the expansion of the port. Businesses that welcome tourists eagerly await larger cruise ships, which already bring in scores of wealthy tourists in matching jackets during the ice-free months. But there is also an obvious sense of unease, rooted in the idea that such a small city will soon be a geopolitical landmark in any military maneuver in the Arctic.
Climate replacement has opened the door for capitalism in crisis to jump “North into the Future,” the state slogan of Alaska. But the new Arctic frontier has the same style as the old, with colonial inequalities and a prime position for business. This hasn’t changed since the first whalers gave the impression of appearing on the horizon.
Stephen Lezak is a researcher founded at the University of Cambridge. He lives in Anchorage, Alaska.