Louis Saint Laurent icebreaker, Canada

An icebreaker is designed to open up maritime routes. Since 1969, the Louis- Saint-Laurent is the largest and oldest of these ships operating in Canada. With its reinforced hull, its powerful propulsion (20.000 CV) and its prominent stern, it moves forward on the ice floe that it cracks and breaks with its weight. From Baffin Bay to the Beaufort sea, navigation requires the use of such ships to provide human establishments located at the furthest Northern point with fresh supplies. The ice of the sea and the ice of the soil in North Canada are casualties of global warming. They are decreasing and becoming increasingly fragile. This sometimes causes big icebergs that are dangerous for ships to drift. In 2007, satellite images showed that the Northwest Passage was ice-free. In 2008, for the first time since data has been available, passages from the Northwest and the Northeast of the Arctic Ocean have been ice-free at the same time. If the ice keeps melting at the current rate, the summer’s ice floe could disappear before 2020. However, in the long run, certain countries like Russia and Canada, could take advantage of the ice floe’s disappearance. These advantages include linking America, Europe and Russia faster through waters of the far North and exploiting new areas that are rich in natural resources more easily.