ABSTRACT
Climate change triggered a renewal for Arctic shipping in the late 1990s. Several research projects have been conducted since the turn of the 21st century to try and demonstrate shipping along the shorter Arctic routes was cheaper and would thus experience a significant expansion in the forthcoming years. In Canada, as well as in Russian Siberia, destinational traffic dominates a very significant expansion of Arctic shipping, especially in Russian waters: ships come to the Arctic to perform an economic activity, rather than just to transit. Canadian shipping companies in particular have adapted to the poor infrastructure of the Canadian Arctic villages and to the numerous barriers of entry to this niche market. The future of Arctic shipping is thus likely to rest, in the coming decades, on the development of destinational shipping and its integration with global traffic. Climate change is acting as an enabler of Arctic shipping, and is a global phenomenon.
