We're tentatively planning a trip to Svalbard in August. Because of that, in the course of due diligence, we're learning about all things Arctic (best book to read so far, After the Ice: Life, Death, and Geopolitics in the New Arctic by Alun Anderson, which has a chapter on the author's trip to Svalbard).
Today's FT tells us that Russia plans "to sail a large oil tanker the entire length of its Arctic sea coast for the first time, opening a strategic energy trading bridge between European Russia and the far east," suggesting "that the Arctic could emerge as another area in which China starts defining global strategic interests, following its increasing investments in Africa and its moves to build a presence in the Indian Ocean."
*****
Svalbard, over which Norway has sovereignty, is the farthest north one can buy a passenger ticket (three hours north from Oslo), just 800 miles from the North Pole. As Alun Anderson points out in his book, as a result of the Svalbard Treaty of 1820, though Norway has sovereignty, all other treaty signatories have the right to fish, hunt, trap, set up mines and commercials enterprises, and acquire mineral rights.
Maybe we'll just stay and sell cheeseburgers.
(Photo of icebergs in Disko Bay, Greenland, from the Greenland Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.)
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