ARCTIC: China’s Icebreakers & more – 12th Aug 2025

Aluu from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Arctic Update from the 12th of August twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what’s going down North of the Arctic Circle!

Amid the shifting political tides in the Arctic Ocean, China laid down a significant marker of its northern power this week. On Thursday the 7th, shipping news agency gCaptain reported that China has deployed five icebreaking research vessels to the high Arctic, near Alaska. This marks the first time that China has ever operated more than three icebreakers in the Arctic simultaneously, and comes on the heels of the US attempting to increase the size of its own icebreaker fleet.

With this statement, China is sending a message to the US that they are currently the more dominant maritime nation in the far north.

The US’s icebreaking fleet needs urgent additions, and the country is turning to Finland for help. On Tuesday the 5th, Reuters reported that Alexander Stubb, Finland’s President, spoke with Donald Trump the day prior on different matters, including the purchase of fifteen icebreakers from Finland.

Trump has previously stated he wants the US to acquire forty new icebreakers to boost his country’s Arctic presence. Finland is in pole position to earn billions from Trump’s Arctic ambitions.

On Sunday the 10th, the US Coast Guard revealed its first new polar icebreaker in twenty-five years, the newly rechristened Storis. Troy Edgar, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, spoke at Storis’s unveiling, saying “we’re really just preparing to build our Arctic fighting force”.

The Storis was purchased for $125 million US dollars by the former Biden administration from a private ship holder in twenty twenty-four, but after extensive repairs and upgrades, the US can celebrate its first icebreaker in decades.

Staying in the US, the Alaskan economy has mixed news, as the Alaska Department of Labor has released a new report on the health of the state’s economy in twenty twenty-four. The overall picture seems good, as Alaska finally regained the jobs it lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, and wages increased at a rate higher than inflation. Oil and mining projects have seen huge growth, and tourism is holding steady.

But this good news doesn’t extend to Alaska’s fishing industry. From twenty twenty-three to twenty twenty-four, fisheries lost thirteen percent of their jobs and wages fell by seventeen percent. These losses affect Indigenous communities disproportionately, with twenty-five percent of jobs in the eastern Aleutian islands lost in twenty twenty-four alone.

Nunavut in Northern Canada has good economic news to celebrate. On Thursday the 7th, the tourism association of the region, Travel Nunavut, published its twenty twenty-four economic assessment. Last year, the territory’s travel industry had an almost $600 million US dollar output and supported over 6,000 jobs, more than doubling in size since twenty nineteen. These impressive figures make tourism now the second largest industry in the Arctic Canadian region, only behind mining.

In twenty twenty-three, Travel Nunavut said they hoped the industry would hit about $700 million US dollars by twenty thirty. If this growth keeps moving at the current rate, that ambitious target might be hit much sooner than ever thought.

Tourism in Greenland is causing more frustration than joy among some locals, though. On Tuesday the 5th, The Guardian reported on how cruise tourism is dividing opinions in the northern Greenlandic town of Ilulissat. Ilulissat has been seeing thousands of tourists pass through their waters onboard cruise ships in recent years. But the cruise companies that arrange the voyages have been excluding local businesses, ensuring that they do not benefit at all from the influx of visitors.

Lars Erik Gabrielsen, Ilulissat’s mayor, has called on residents to protest against the cruise ship arrivals with demonstrations and signs, in an effort to ensure that business returns to his town.

Protests and conflicts are on the rise elsewhere in Greenland too. On Tuesday the 5th, news agency High North News reported on a new independence movement brewing in the country. Not about separating Greenland from Denmark though, this one is about Eastern Greenland seceding from the rest of the country.

A new political party, The Party for an Independent East Greenland, has been set up by Mike and Anette Nicolaisen, who say that their government has concentrated all of its efforts and resources on the more populated west coast. They argue that this has left eastern Greenland to suffer from rising unemployment, poor education and deteriorating infrastructure.

The Nicolaisens say they want to make the East Coast a place where their children can grow up healthy and happy, and are willing to spark an independence movement to do so.

Let’s go to Sweden, where there are hopes of a boost to the green energy transition. On Thursday the 7th, Reuters reported that the US Startup, Lyten, has agreed to buy most of the bankrupt Swedish battery maker Northvolt.

Northvolt was once considered Europe’s answer to Chinese dominance in the electric battery market, and with its flagship plant located in Skelleftea in northern Sweden, this also brought an economic boost to Arctic Sweden. But the company went bankrupt in March due to financial struggles.

Lyten says the Skelleftea plant will resume business soon and be shipping batteries by next year, bringing much relief to those who lost their jobs in northern Sweden.

What’s growing in Iceland isn’t business, but trees. On Wednesday the 6th, Icelandic newspaper RUV reported that Heartwood Afforested Land, a Dutch company, plans to cultivate about 2,000 hectares (200 square kilometers) of forest in Iceland for carbon sequestration, timber use, and land restoration.

This is important news as Iceland currently has only about two percent forest cover. Even though Iceland was once covered in forests, Vikings swiftly deforested the island, and the harsh Icelandic climate makes tree growth very difficult.

Heartwood has purchased two areas of land in western Iceland, in Villingavatn and Borgarfjörður, and aims to plant five different species of trees and create a self-sustaining forest that can be both an economic and ecological benefit to Iceland.

Want to learn more about Iceland’s forested past? Take a look at the link in the show notes.

Forests are under threat of severe wildfires in Siberia though. On Tuesday the 5th, the Russian Academy of Sciences' Siberian Branch said in a press release that wildfires in Siberia have been increasing in intensity over the last twenty years. The rise in fires has been attributed to the Arctic warming faster than anywhere else on earth, and climate change causing increasing anticyclonic activity in the atmosphere, which forms long-term droughts.

The results of the wildfires aren’t staying local to Siberia. The huge environmental changes brought on by repeated fires are causing permafrost degradation and changes in vegetation cover and soil hydrology. This then impacts the quality of air and water throughout northern Russia, and increases global climate warming.

In prehistoric news, on Monday the 4th, scientists from Bournemouth University published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, revealing their discovery of a vast animal community that lived in the European Arctic 75,000 years ago.

Animal remains in the Arctic older than 10,000 years are incredibly rare due to the shifting climates, which cause them to deteriorate. But in the Arne Qvamgrotta cave in northern Norway, researchers have found preserved bones from a huge range of species, from polar bears to puffins, from cod to collared lemmings, which have never been found in Scandinavia before.

This discovery opens up our knowledge of a rarely seen world, and lets us look into how animals have adapted to the harsh Arctic conditions over millennia.

From the oldest in northern Norway to the youngest, on Thursday the 8th Norwegian broadcaster NRK reported that the Altaturneringen has kicked off. This is one of the largest youth football tournaments, taking place in Alta in northern Norway, with almost 400 different teams from around the world invited to participate in more than 1,000 matches.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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