RESOLUTE, Nunavut - Canada plans to ask Russia to collaborate on Arctic mapping projects in the hope it will defuse future tensions over ownership of lucrative undiscovered resources in the Far North.
Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Monday he will personally make the overture to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, on a trip to Moscow in two weeks.
"There is the possibility of doing things with the Russians. So certainly when I meet with Minister Lavrov, I will raise this issue with him to see how we can continue the work being undertaken here," Cannon said Monday.
Cannon offered that assessment as he arrived in the Far North to get a first-hand look at Canadian Arctic sovereignty efforts. From Resolute, at the northern tip of the Northwest Passage, he will travel another 650 kilometres further north on Tuesday, to Borden Island Ice Camp, at the tip of the Arctic Ocean.
At Borden, Cannon will inspect the imminent deployment of Canada's first undersea drone -- an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) that will be used to gather data about the make-up of the seabed with unprecedented efficiency.
"This is something that has not been done before," said Jacob Verhoef, science director at Natural Resources Canada, one of several senior government officials who briefed Cannon here Monday.
Canada owns two of the 1,800 kilogram subs, which will spend three days at sea collecting data. It will be deployed from a remote camp on an Arctic Ocean ice flow about 350 kilometres from Borden Island, or 1,000 kilometres from Resolute Bay.
Cannon heralded the deployment of the Canadian-built AUV as "an exciting time for our know-how and our knowledge" as he sounded an upbeat note about co-operating with Russia in the polar region.
In recent years, Ottawa has viewed the Kremlin's ambitions in the North with suspicion after a Russian submarine planted a flag on the Arctic seabed and long-range bombers flew close to Canadian airspace.
But after he hosted a meeting with Lavrov and three other foreign ministers of Arctic Ocean countries in Gatineau last week, Cannon indicated he is more optimistic about working with Russia in the future.
"There seems to be a general consensus that when it comes to Arctic affairs there is a spirit that was . . . rekindled again the other day in Gatineau, in Chelsea, a spirit of collaboration and co-operation."
Cannon said he is confident science can settle any future international disputes over Canada's Arctic borders and those of its neighbours.
"When the mapping is complete you need a consensus based on science," Cannon said.
"The more you collaborate, the more you have these initiatives together, the more it is science based, the legitimacy argument is much easier to make."
Cannon will visit scientists conducting the fieldwork necessary to prepare Canada's submission to the United Nation's Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.
Canada has until 2013 to present its case to the UN panel, and is laying the groundwork for a submission that would call for extending Canada's borders well beyond the 200-mile nautical limit.
Much is at stake because one-quarter of the Earth's untapped oil and gas reserves are believed to be beneath the Arctic Ocean seabed.
"It's extremely important," Cannon said. "We've committed to be able to table before or at 2013 our information and I think we are on schedule."
Canada has butted heads with Russia, the United States and Denmark on claims to various portions of the region. Since taking power in 2006, the Harper Conservatives have made the Arctic a priority.
But as Cannon was told in briefings Monday by senior Natural Resources officials, Canada has also co-operated very well with the United States and Denmark on joint Arctic research projects.
Verhoef told Cannon that Canada has had three separate rounds of talks with Russia in 2007, 2008 and 2009 about possible collaboration.
The Conservative government has pledged to increase Canada's military presence in the Northwest Passage, where the pace of melting ice could make it a regular Atlantic-Pacific shipping lane. Canada claims sovereignty over the passage, but the United States and others say it is an international waterway.
Mike Kurdistan, the logistics manager of the Polar Continental Shelf Program, told Cannon that his group managed to transport people into four-fifths of Canada's massive Arctic territory in the past year.
"We're putting boots on the ground," Kurdistan told Cannon.
"So you're exercising sovereignty by occupying the territory?" Cannon asked him.
"Exactly," Kurdistan replied.
