Ottawa investing $10-million in Arctic surveillance   

(Anna Mehler Paperny/Globe and Mail, 4 May 2012) -- Canada is moving to wrest back control of a swiftly changing North – or at least get a better handle on what’s going on in its icy waters. Global warming and growing international interest in the melting Northwest Passage make it imperative, the federal government says in an online call for expressions of interest, to improve surveillance in territory Canada claims but knows little about. The research arm of the Department of National Defence is investing $10-million from now through 2015 in a remote-controlled satellite surveillance project in the Barrow Strait, a small slice of the Northwest Passage through which most vessels pass on their way westward along that route. The Northern Watch project was announced in 2007 and the first equipment set up the next year, only to be severely damaged by harsh weather conditions. Now, after several years of remediation and altering equipment to make it stand up better to Arctic conditions, Ottawa has put a call out for a company to build a system that researchers can control from Halifax and, eventually, set up to be entirely automated. It will send the signals to Defence Research and Development Canada's Atlantic section, which specializes in underwater photography. “Right now, we don’t have any actual presence in the Arctic, except for where we have people living,” said Gary Geling, Defence Research and Development Canada’s lead scientist on the project. “One of the things we really don’t have a good feel for right now is exactly where everything is. … This [new equipment] allows us to know who’s coming in.”

Posted 4 May 2012; 1:10:49 PM.   Permalink

Tagged: Canada, Circumpolar News, Infrastructure, transportation, May12, Research