Navy aid in HMS Terror search a prelude to new Arctic role
1st of 6 new Arctic ships due in 2018
Three Canadian Navy members were part of the crew of the privately operated ship the Martin Bergmann, which found what is believed to be HMS Terror last week.
A Navy cook, bosun and remote underwater vehicle operator were involved in the search.
The man who sent them there – Rear Admiral John Newton, commander of the Navy's Atlantic fleet – says he is trying to build the Navy's partnerships and capacity in time for its new Arctic role.
"The Navy's involvement is not really about artifacts," he says.
"It's a story of the Navy striving for several years now... to prepare the navy – its equipment, its competencies and its sailors in particular – for a bigger mission in the Arctic."
The Navy is expecting the first of its six new Arctic ships in 2018. The ships were first announced in 2007.
Newton says the new ships are driving the push for new Arctic capabilities.
"We have been not only developing our competencies to match the capabilities of this ship that the government is building for the Navy, but we are deepening our relationships with a broad front of government actors in the North," he says.
"The sky is the limit for what this ship will help the Government of Canada achieve in the North."
Team effort
Others have been less optimistic about the new ships. Sometimes referred to as "slushbreakers" since they were first announced to be ice-strengthened ships rather than icebreakers, the ships may also be limited by the lack of Arctic deep water ports.
With the closure of the only such port in Churchill, Man., this summer, Canada no longer has a single northern port capable of docking a large ship. The dock under construction at the old Nanisivik mine site has been scaled back to only allow for refuelling in the summer.
Other government agencies help to make up the Navy's existing gap in Arctic capability.
"The Navy is a partner," Newton says. "I can't stress it enough, we don't do anything in the North without the Rangers, without the Parks linkage on this specific type of operation, without the Coast Guard who are fundamentally our best friends in the North."
The Terror find appears to confirm that point: Sammy Kogvik, the man who pointed the Bergmann expedition and its multi-agency staff to the Terror's final resting place, is a Canadian Ranger.