The Beaufort isn't the busy place it used to be back in the late 1970s to mid-'80s, when companies such as Gulf, Esso and Dome were poised to explore the potential of the Arctic Ocean and its hidden resources.
In early 2014, things were looking up for the region as major oil and gas companies such as BP, Chevron, Esso and ConocoPhillips started showing interest in the Arctic yet again, buying exploration licences in the Beaufort with work commitments to the tune of $2 billion.
On top of that, with the completion of the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway, the talk of a port in Tuk has garnered growing support. That prospect spurred Tuk Mayor Merven Gruben and former Nunakput MLA Jackie Jacobson to travel to Ottawa to ask the federal government to invest in dredging the harbour and create docking facilities in Tuktoyaktuk.
The region was hit with a setup later in 2014 when Chevron, then Imperial Oil suspended drilling, followed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's ban on Arctic drilling the next year but that doesn't mean the territory should be sitting on its laurels.
The territory needs to consider the port as a feasible possibility. With the moratorium on drilling set to potentially expire within two years, this is the time to prepare for the eventual lifting of that freeze. But oil and gas aren't the only economic boons for the Arctic. The military and commercial shipping routes are also viable sources of financial gain for the territory.
Doug Matthews, in his January 2014 report Base for the Beaufort, states that developing a full-service port will lower resource exploration costs and allow the Beaufort to become more competitive, which in turn encourages exploration companies to invest in more projects in the Arctic. It could also provide a staging point for emergency response for things such as blowouts or spills and other marine-related accidents.
The recent debacle over cancelled annual barge shipments to Arctic communities served by GNWT-owned Marine Transportation Services adds to the urgency of investigating Tuk a possible staging route.
Tuk now has everything needed to become the actual "base for the Beaufort" – an airport, existing harbour and an all-weather highway – the perfect combination of infrastructure.
In 1976, Justice Thomas Berger spoke of the possibilities that a pipeline might bring to the Mackenzie Delta: “We are told that if the pipeline is built then oil and gas exploration in the Delta and the Beaufort Sea will expand ... and that we'll see pipelines bringing oil and gas from the deep water of the Beaufort Sea to the main pipelines that will lead from the Delta to Southern Canada.”
Some 40 years later we have cycled back to the same promise highlighted in the Berger Report – the viability of Arctic resources.
The recently purchased – and ready to begin shipping – Churchill port, the new naval refuelling facility in Nanasivik and six Arctic offshore patrol ships currently being built all serve as good examples of what can be done with the right investments to open trade corridors in the North. The sea lane is opening up for longer periods and we are already hosting cruise ships in Tuk.
The potential is there to benefit from the Canadian military as well as the variety of international shipping traversing the Northwest Passage.
It will be important for the GNWT and the feds – now that base infrastructure is in place – to carefully scrutinize the economic benefits that a Tuk port would bring to the territory and, accordingly, prepare the right supports to create an "Arctic gateway" that can benefit from growing shipping trends and future resource exploration projects.