Kapitan Khlebnikov

With a name which seems more appropriate to a former NKVD official in the old USSR, we actually find a Finnish made ship which is a polar class icebreaker. One of three in its class, it has sailed the polar regions since its launching in 1981. The Khlebnikov was the first vessel to circumnavigate Antartica, with passengers in the 1996-1997 season.

Designed specifically for polar exploration with 108 eco-travelers, it was on a recent (late May 2008) foray across the Bering Straits, around the northwest tip of Alaska, Point Barrow, headed for Resolute Bay in Nunavut, Canada. Yes, that is the name of the Canadian province wedged in between Northwest Territory and Hudson Bay. If you are little fuzzy on this geography, you should either break out your globe or turn to page 117 in your Rand-McNally. This map of Canada shows the US Border to nearly the North Pole. At the top of the page near the time zone indicator (Central) is the Island called Resolute (Qausuittuq) and the destination for the Russian icebreaker. A reminder here that the the map as shown is not a transverse mercator projection and therefore the distances at the top of the page are exaggerated compared to those at the bottom
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Mariners have sought the fabled Northwest Passage since the initial discovery of North America. For commercial traffic, the shortened route would be a God send. The folks on the Kapitan Khlebnikov were on a different errand. Reports indicated the “receding” sea ice was such that the so called bane of the polar bears would open the lanes to easy traffic. They believed the global warming prognosticators and set off for Resolute Bay. While crossing the Beaufort Sea just north of Prudhoe Bay, AK they discovered the folly of listening to Algorists. The 24,000 horsepower state of the art ice breaker was stuck in the ice!

A reporter for the Globe and Mail was on board to report on the situation: “I am on the bridge of the massive Russian icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnikov, and the tension is palpable. We have hit ice—thick ice.

The ice master studies the mountains of white packed around the ship while the 24,000-horsepower diesel engines work at full throttle to open a path. The ship rises slowly onto the barrier of ice, crushes it and tosses aside blocks the size of small cars as if they were ice cubes in a glass. It creeps ahead a few metres, then comes to a halt, its bow firmly wedged in the ice. After doing this for two days, the ship can go no farther.

The ice master confers with the captain, who makes a call to the engine room. The engines are shut down. He turns to those of us watching the drama unfold, and we are shocked by his words: 'Now, only nature can help this ship.' We are doomed to drift.

What irony. I am a passenger on one of the most powerful icebreakers in the world, travelling through the Northwest Passage - which is supposed to become almost ice-free in a time of global warming, the next shipping route across the top of the world - and here we are, stuck in the ice, engines shut down, bridge deserted. Only time and tide can free us.”

I have listened to this blather about reduced sea ice over the last few months and feel justified to comment. In June of 2006, in response to claims of dispoiling Arctic wilderness to search for oil on the North Slope of Alaska I decided to go have a look for myself. I left the Ozarks on the 15th and arrived in Deadhorse (Prudhoe Bay) on the 21st of June, the summer solstice. Because of tight security, I could drive (!) no further, I took the tour bus the last eight miles to the Arctic Ocean. After a tour of the “oil patch” we parked on a rocky spit of land and were given time enough to dip our tootsies in the Arctic Ocean. Not only was it the fulfliment of a lifelong dream, it provided first hand information of what that place was actually like. The air temperature was 38º, breezy, and the ice pack was roughly 100’ off shore. Despite being bathed in sunshine for some thrity plus days, twenty-four hours a day, the air was chilly and the ice unrelenting.

At Prudhoe Bay, verified estimates place the depth of the frozen muskeg at 2000’. It is a hostile environment. One of our party stripped to his swimming trunks, tried a brief dip and assured us that it was, indeed, an unpleasant experience. Other than “being there”, there is little reason to linger so I turned the Ford around and drove the four hundred miles of gravel back to Fairbanks. The following evening I was enjoying a round of golf at the North Star Golf Club (North America’s northernmost) with a 9pm tee time. I holed out on eighteen at about 12:15 am.

It appears that a great thaw can occur and then be followed the following season by extreme cold which replaces the melted pack ice. It is the way it works. It has been this way for millenia and will continue. The cyclical nature of the rhythms of the earth is a fact of our existance. Destruction of the global economy will find our planet indifferent. It will continue to function in the same manner until the Creator decides otherwise. That is the only consistancy we can depend upon.

In His abiding love,


Cecil Moon