Thinking with Ice: Sailing the Northwest Passage

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The sailboat ‘Lumi’, somewhere in the Beaufort Sea. Photo: Juho Karhu

The Arctic Institute Planetary Series 2025

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Ice moves, it freezes, squeezes, ice breaks, ice travels, ice melts – ice acts. Ice defines the polar regions, yet that definition is now in a crisis.

The sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has been shrinking by 12.2% each decade since the observations began in 1979.¹⁾NASA (2024) Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Extent. https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/?intent=121. Accessed on 26 February 2025 According to some estimates, the summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean might be lost for the first time by 2030s.²⁾Guarino, MV., Sime, L.C., Schröeder, D. et al. (2020) Sea-ice-free Arctic during the Last Interglacial supports fast future loss. Nat. Clim. Chang 10: 928–932; Kim, Y-H., Min, S-K., Gillett, N.P., Notz, D. & Malinina, E, (2023). Observationally-constrained projections of an ice-free Arctic even under a low emission scenario. Nature Communications 14(3139 meaning there would be no multiyear ice after that. The diminishing sea ice cover characterizes all Arctic developments: geopolitical aspirations, increasing interest in sea routes,³⁾Gricius, G. (2021) Geopolitical Implications of New Arctic Shipping Lanes. The Arctic Institute 18th of March, 2021. https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/geopolitical-implications-arctic-shipping-lanes/. Accessed on 28 February 2025 economic “opportunities,” and military presence. Yet, little attention has been paid to the ice itself.

The agency of more-than-human actors is a prominent theme within several social science disciplines. The acknowledgement of humans being merely one part of the multispecies planetary realm we live in has become more and more concrete with the climate crisis. Agency has been discussed for decades, for example by thinkers such as Bruno Latour and Donna Haraway, and more recently, by various scholars focusing on new materialism, such as Karen Barad with the concept of intra-action,⁴⁾Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway, Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Duke University Press and Jane Bennett with vital materiality.⁵⁾Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant Matter. A Political Ecology of Things. Duke University Press The agency of more-than-humans is also closely related to the discussion on the legal rights of nature.⁶⁾Tugend, M. (2025) The Arctic Ocean as Kin: Rethinking Law through Relational Care. The Arctic Institute 8 April 2025. https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/arctic-ocean-kin-rethinking-law-through-relational-care/. Accessed on 11 April 2025 In this piece, however, I focus on understanding the overarching agency of ice over a sailboat’s voyage of the Northwest Passage.

The Northwest Passage

The Northwest Passage is a waterway connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic, stretching from the Bering Strait to Baffin Bay, traversing above North America. The route is situated in the Inuit Nunangat, the homeland of the Inuit. Most of the year, the route is completely frozen.

The Northwest Passage is one of the three potential Arctic maritime routes. Despite the global attention since Roald Amundsen’s first navigation of the route, so far, the NWP has been transited 430 times in total, ever, including ice breakers, cargo vessels, leisure boats and cruise ships.⁷⁾Scott Polar Research Institute (2024) Northwest Passage Transits to the end of the 2024 Navigation Season. https://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/resources/infosheets/northwestpassage.pdf. Accessed on 26 February 2024 The legal status of the Northwest Passage is debated: Canada sees it as internal waters, whereas the United States considers it as an international strait. As the sea ice is melting, the legal status of the NWP becomes increasingly important as more activity is possible. However, the excitement towards the Arctic maritime route is based on the hopes of the future, not necessarily on the transit numbers of today.

The melting of the sea ice is an ecological and cultural catastrophe for the creatures that depend on it. However, melting sea ice also opens up new resources, such as the Arctic sea routes. The Arctic sea routes are deemed utopian or dystopian, depending on one’s point of view. Navigating the polar waters can be treacherous with ice, difficult weather conditions and poorly charted marine spaces,⁸⁾Uryupova, E. (2024) Climate Change and Challenges of Navigation in the Arctic: How Safe are We? The Arctic Institute 30 April, 2024. https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/climate-change-challenges-navigation-arctic-how-safe-are-we/. Accessed on 28 February 2025 but even still, there is increasing geopolitical attention towards a more active utilization of these sea routes.

Sailing North

We sailed the notorious passage with our sailboat in the summer of 2024. After spending a few years in Alaska with our 43-foot boat Lumi, we wanted to return to the Atlantic via the Northwest Passage. From Seward, Alaska, where we began the voyage, to the coast of Greenland, the journey is about 5000 nautical miles. When sailing the route with a vessel without ice-breaking capabilities, the power and agency of ice over the passage becomes undeniable. If a slow boat without ice-breaking capabilities, such as a sailing boat, aims to transit the NWP in one season, you cannot stop for extended periods; otherwise, the ice will trap you. The season for transits is short.

During the sail, I had a lot of time to think about the agency of ice.

We left Nome, Alaska, in the middle of July, when the ice charts of the Canadian Ice Service started showing some signs of the ice losing its grip in the north. First, we continued sailing north, across the Bering and Chukchi seas, which showed us nothing but their gentle side. Above Utqiagvik, the northernmost part of the U.S., ice made us stop for the first time. From there on, the sea ice still controlled the coast and the Beaufort Sea.

For a week, the overarching agency of the ice determined not only our voyage forward but also the land- and mindscapes. One definition of Latour for agency is that it “modifies other actors through” the course of action,⁹⁾Latour, B. (2004). The Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy. Harvard University Press, p.75 and this the ice now did. We couldn’t sail ahead, nor go to the land, as three polar bears occupied the thin shoreline between our boat and the ocean, along with the sea ice.

I was starting to get frustrated, yet also ashamed of my thoughts. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the ice didn’t melt at all? Does it have to be this exact year, though, my mind whispered, as both our visas and the boat permit to stay in the U.S. were expiring.

Finally, on the last day of July, there was a thin strip of green on the ice chart, meaning there were less than three-tenths of ice in a certain area, and we set sail towards the east.

Encountering ice

We encountered our first sea ice just after leaving the lagoon that had provided us shelter. Meeting sea ice was exciting, yet nerve-wracking. Big chunks of grey, white and turquoise ice, in all shapes and sizes, floating in the ever-living water below and around us. Navigating with ice is tricky, one must think with ice.¹⁰⁾Braverman, I. & Johnson E., R. (2020). (Eds.) Blue Legalities. The Life & Laws of the Sea. The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law, 52(3): 359-363. Duke University Press It is different to study the ice from satellite images and ice charts than to actually sail among it. The perspective from the helm of a small sailboat differs from commercial ships and tourist cruises, where both the boats and the crew are larger. Slaloming between the ice floes is rewarding yet tiring.

Waves came and went, days and weeks passed, and the border drawn on the state-centric maps changed from the U.S. to Canada, from Iñupiat homelands to Inuvialuit homelands, on sunny weather.

We continued sailing towards the next bottleneck of ice in the passage, in a cloud of heavy smoke from the forest fires far away in mainland Canada. In Coronation Gulf, we met the only cargo ship that came to our path during the passage. After stopping briefly in Iqaluktuuttiaq, we anchored on the northside of Qikiqtagafaaluk, as the ice ahead of us stopped us again.

Now, it was past mid-August, and there were already a few hours of darkness each night.

Actors with agency are capable of changing and surprising, and that ice certainly does. Ice doesn’t necessarily behave the way one would assume; it doesn’t develop linearly. Studying the ice charts and satellite images, the ice coverage of the next section of the passage, Victoria Strait and Larsen Sound, was growing instead of diminishing. A recent study shows how with the increasing temperatures, the multi-year ice travels from the northern parts to the southern parts, creating choke points for the NWP, thus actually reducing shipping season length at the Northwest Passage.¹¹⁾Cook, A.J., Dawson, J., Howell, S.E.L., Holloway, J. E. & Brady, M. (2024) Sea ice choke points reduce the length of the shipping season in the Northwest Passage. Communications Earth & Environment, 5(362 Larsen Sound was one of these choke points. Ice isn’t static; it moves with the wind, with currents, and often follows the landforms of the shore and the seabed. Ice is vital¹²⁾Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant Matter. A Political Ecology of Things. Duke University Press and participates actively in how it is understood.

After waiting over a week before the ice in Victoria Strait and Larsen Sound gave up, the ice allowed us to continue. In rather heavy weather, we sailed across the most ice-dense area we would encounter on our sail.

Sailing among ice can be thought of through interaction. Sometimes, the interactions are literal; Sailing in the ice, you cannot fully avoid touching the ice. One must steer the boat in a manner that takes into account the nature of the ice, the wind, the currents and the capabilities of the boat, to touch the ice only gently.

Sailing with the ice, and the Northwest Passage in particular can be also thought of as an intra-action,¹³⁾Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway, Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Duke University Press in which the agency of ice is co-constituted between our boat and the changing ice. Furthermore, the wider agency of ice in the NWP can be thought of as co-created with human-induced global warming and the accelerating pace of the melting sea ice. The idea of melting ice has gotten the attention of the world, and perhaps also we wouldn’t have considered this route if it wasn’t for the smaller ice extent due to climate change.

We then continued to sail through the Bellot Strait, glided past Lancaster Sound, and after a stop in Mittimatalik we continued onwards to cross the Baffin Bay to Greenland. Now, it was not the sea ice that we had to consider anymore; it was the icebergs – huge, beautiful, and perilous. The big ones showed on our radar at night, the small ones didn’t.

Ice let us through

When travelling the route with a sailboat, ice truly dictates everything, and its agency becomes tangible. When we could sail, to where and how fast, were all questions we didn’t have that much to say ourselves, as it was the ice in the form of the ice charts, satellite images and our visual observation, that had the agency to decide those things.

While the attention of the world is increasingly on the Arctic, especially in the “possibilities” of the melting sea ice cover, what is often forgotten or not understood is that it is the ice still, luckily, that determines all life and activity in the region. The geopolitical imagination, including the utilization of the northern sea routes and other resources of the Arctic – which has recently been more in the political focus than perhaps ever – has been built on the reality of the melting sea ice, but also by the affective practices of creating a certain kind of space.¹⁴⁾Dittmer, J., Moisio, S., Ingram, A., & Dodds, K. (2011). Have you heard the one about the disappearing ice? Recasting Arctic geopolitics. Political Geography, 30/4; Kangasluoma, S. & Lempinen, H. (2022). Making of the Arctic dream – affective resources in the strategies of Arctic coastal states. Globalizations 20(3 While the ice surely is melting, the ocean space in the Arctic is still not terra nullius, nor solely a liquid form that can be entered.

At the beginning of September, we completed the voyage as the 410th boat in the history of recorded transits.¹⁵⁾Scott Polar Research Institute (2024) Northwest Passage Transits to the end of the 2024 Navigation Season. https://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/resources/infosheets/northwestpassage.pdf. Accessed on 26 February 2024 We set our anchor outside the picturesque town of Qeqertarsuaq, in Kalaallit Nunaat.

Ice let us through.

Sohvi Kangasluoma is a postdoctoral researcher at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland.