Nome, Alaska, port to be expanded
Cruising to Nome: The first U.S. deep water port for the Arctic to host cruise ships, military
By MARK THIESSEN
June 18, 2023
https://apnews.com/article/alaska-arcti ... fbc0d0e913
It was 2016, and at the time, the cruise ship Serenity was the largest vessel ever to sail through the Northwest Passage.
But as the Arctic sea ice relents under the pressures of global warming and opens shipping lanes across the top of the world, more tourists are venturing to Nome — a northwest Alaska destination known better for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race and its 1898 gold rush than luxury travel.
The problem remains: There’s no place to park the big boats. While smaller cruise ships are able to dock, officials say that of the dozen arriving this year, half will anchor offshore.
That’s expected to change as a $600 million-plus expansion makes Nome, population 3,500, the nation’s first deep-water Arctic port. The expansion, expected to be operational by the end of the decade, will accommodate not just larger cruise ships of up to 4,000 passengers, but cargo ships to deliver additional goods for the 60 Alaska Native villages in the region, and military vessels to counter the presence of Russian and Chinese ships in the Arctic.
It’s a prospect that excites business owners and officials in Nome, but concerns others who worry about the impact of additional tourists and vessel traffic on the environment and animals Alaska Natives depend on for subsistence.
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Coast guard vessels in 2021 also encountered Chinese ships 50 miles (80 km) off Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg last yea r warned that Russia and China have pledged to cooperate in the Arctic, “a deepening strategic partnership that challenges our values and interests.”
Still, the prospect of Nome welcoming more tourists and a greater military presence bothers some residents. Austin Ahmasuk, an Inupiaq native, said the port’s original construction displaced an area traditionally used for subsistence hunting or fishing, and the expansion won’t help.
“The Port of Nome is development purely for the sake of development,” Ahmasuk said.
_________________
"There are a thousand things that can happen when you go light a rocket engine, and only one of them is good."
Tom Mueller of SpaceX, in Air and Space, Jan. 2011
Both the climate and the cold war are heating up.
So the Arctic is being exploited as never before.
And territorial greed and envy is also spreading north.
The city of Nome is right at the tip of the Seward Peninsula...that piece of Alaska that points west, and almost, but not quite, touches the tip of Russian Siberia.
I am sure Putin has long had his best lawyers poring over the bill of sale...drawn up when Seward persuaded the U.S. Congress to buy Alaska from the Russian Czar back in the 1860s...looking for some loophole that shows that the US doesnt really own Alaska.
During WWII Japan occupied towns in the Aleutian Islands, and the Japanese threat forced the US to build a trans Canada highway to connect the then territory of Alaska to the lower 48. But once we defeated Japan we no longer had an East Asian rival to threaten American ownership of the Pacific like that...until now with China.
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