In Canada's Northwest Territories, three geologists had an experience straight out of an adventure novel: snow, cold, and a coyote that had snuck into their cooking tent to chew through the electrical wiring. The result? Their refrigerator-freezer went haywire, destroying months of food. A week-long trek to Whitehorse, 900 kilometers away, was the only solution. This is the kind of ordeal that makes prospecting in the Arctic not only lonely, but incredibly tough.
resources: deposits of zinc, titanium, palladium, nickel and rare earth elements that are vital to the energy transition and modern technologies. These treasures remain job function email database largely buried not for lack of interest, but because extraction has always been too expensive. Now, however, climate change is changing the rules of the game. The ice is retreating faster than ever – between 2013 and 2019, summer ice decreased by 17% – opening up new transport routes and making mineral deposits more accessible.
The competition for Arctic resources is not only economic, but also geopolitical. Major powers such as the United States and China are investing heavily in the search for essential minerals, seeking to reduce their dependence on existing monopolies. Greenland, for example, is home to the largest deposits of rare earths in the West, attracting investors and even sparking interest from controversial leaders such as Donald Trump, who has suggested buying the island from Denmark.
The atmosphere in Reykjavik at the annual Arctic Assembly was feverish. Investors and government and mining officials crowded together to discuss new projects. But extracting resources from one of the most inhospitable areas on the planet is no easy feat.