Arctic ? Why Airships to the Arctic ?

Dr. Barry Prentice is a faculty member at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, not a metropolis whose name leaps readily to the tongue of the average person.

He is Professor of Supply Chain Management, a somewhat under-appreciated business subject, or rather it was unrecognized until Dr. Prentice began organizing a series of Conferences called "Airships to the Arctic" some years back.

Dr. Prentice knows his subject well, and brought his intellect and his resolve to bear on the geopolitical issues raised by climate change , skillfully focusing the world's attention on areas and facts that were not well known but are now becoming familiar talk show fare, and which, thanks to him, are rapidly becoming of worldwide importance.

Simply put, the concept of global warming, OR climate change if the former phrase offends political or meteorological sensibilities, is beginning to slowly --- but inexorably --- exert its effect on some very important geopolitical facts of life.

Geopolitical --- there's another word that is arguably not as well known as it should be to the average North American. It means, essentially, the study of geographical facts and issues, and their effects on a nation's policies and activities.

Funny ! Just a few years ago, the data that indicated that the average temperature of the world was inching up, and had already climbed a couple of degrees on the average worldwide, was the subject of jokes by second-rate humorists. We recall one politically-motivated stand-up comedian wisecracking that , personally, he would welcome global warming as he was not looking forward to shoveling snow next winter.

Ah, but he ignored all the issues and events that are affected by even a slight change in average temperature, changes that we barely take notice of in our day-to-day activities and observations.

Suddenly, even here in the United States, naturalists  began seeing birds in their garden that had never been seen before in their neighborhoods...  not something that the average person even notices.

The trees in people's gardens are being attacked by insects that never used to travel this far north, insects of which the local County Agricultural Agents had never heard. Strange events and observations !

There may have been a backpage item in the national news about the Inuit, the native peoples in the Canadian northland who are subsistence hunters in Arctic waters, having difficulty finding and hunting the animals that were their food sources in the icy waters whose rich abundant life was their prey.

... or a fascinating item about the fabled Northwest Passage. That was a storied track that --- it was said --- would permit ships desiring to travel from Europe to China and India (the Orient) to sail north through the ice packs north of Canada, through the Chukchi Sea, around Point Barrow, into the Barents Sea . ...not familiar terms to most of the world's population.  In doing so, it was said, they would be able to avoid the very long track around stormy and dangerous Cape Horn. After the Panama Canal was built, the Canal provided a viable alternative, but its use still required a long, slow, and expensive voyage . 

For those of us who were awake in geography class (remember when that subject was a standard part of the curriculum?) or history class, the Northwest Passage was an explorer's dream for many centuries . Suddenly, we learned a short time ago that, with the warming of those formerly ice-choked shipping lanes, two Chinese merchant ships had traveled through this Passage, dependably free of ice for the first time in recorded history.

Cruise ships have even begun to seriously consider scheduling pleasure cruises for well-to-do tourists through the Northwest Passage.

Something new and significant was clearly UP !

We don't know whether it was that or the reality TV series "Ice Road Truckers", which dealt with the dangerous journeys of those supplying necessary goods and services. The ice roads upon which these heavily-laden tractor-trailer rigs traveled were fashioned out of frozen lakes and packed snow, dangerous, undependable, terribly slow to navigate, and --- indeed --- impossible to travel on during the summer months. That was when ice, strong enough to support those huge trucks, turned to slush and then into the water of once-frozen ponds.   

In a relatively short time (short for geological clocks), that ice, which had been strong enough and solid enough to support heavy truck loads, now had become liquid water and allowed ships to pass through the melt channels in a careful, but safe, path in the ice...  the Northwest Passage was a reality ! However, this was true only at certain times and under certain weather conditions.

A year-round land OR water track was still out of reach.

That's when Dr. Prentice and a relatively small handful of inventors, builders, dreamers, and airship enthusiasts, with ready financial support by military organizations concerned with issues of supply, came up with the idea of using cargo-carrying airships to provide the necessary transportation link between source of supply and user, without having to depend on heavily-constructed roads or landing strip runways. 

It became possible --- and financially feasible --- when access to the rich resources of the Arctic became a reality. Vast deposits of oil and rare earth minerals (required for high-technology products) were discovered. Very heavy machinery was required to extract them; then some dependable way of transporting them to transshipping centers in southern Canada and the United States; and then to users down south.

It became practical when the airship people set aside their dreams of enormous Zeppelin-size luxurious airships, with passenger-carrying capability, furnished with beauty salons and gourmet dining, even grand pianos. Instead, their attention and their mission were focused on the practical goals of carrying reasonable loads of freight. Developments in standardized cargo containers enabled those goals to be achieved.

These cargo airships would be able to provide services to the Inuit and First Nation Canadians, as well as the others --- outsiders; scientists; riggers; oil well drillers; emergency medical transportation and assistance services; food; heat; electrical generators; outboard motors to power the small craft that made such a difference in survivability, together with their fuel and spare parts; metal tools instead of those carved out of animal ivory.

Areas, that had been all but uninhabitable, began to sprout marine biological stations; research areas in Arctic biology were suddenly sustainable; the entire quality of life throughout a huge area improved quickly and noticeably.

Of significance to the military organizations were the new areas to patrol, to protect, to supply, to establish bases, together with the mission-critical means to support them, and to utilize them for reconnaissance and surveillance.

... and that's why Dr. Prentice's quest, originally seeming so quixotic, to develop and provide these entirely new transportation methods gained such importance. That's why his Airships to the Arctic concept was developed and supported, and --- apparently  --- is succeeding.

Any questions ?