The CCGS Louis S St-Laurent icebreaker will return to the North Pole this summer, more than 30 years after its historic first trip.
The ship, Canada’s largest icebreaker, became the country’s first surface vessel to reach the North Pole in August 1994. It returned with a companion icebreaker in 2014.
The latest trip to the North Pole is expected in late July this year, the federal government said this week, when the Louis S St-Laurent will help to map Canada’s continental shelf in the High Arctic.
The Canadian Coast Guard said the journey would “support the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea” – the rules under which Canada is asserting a territorial claim over large areas of Arctic Ocean seabed.
More broadly, the coast guard said nine icebreakers will be deployed in the Arctic between June and November “to support Northern communities, carry out services, and support Government of Canada Arctic missions.”
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Last summer, the coast guard became heavily involved in a weeks-long mission to refloat a stricken commercial freighter in the Northwest Passage.
