Shipping through the Arctic

The Arctic Sea is opening up to shipping.  I’d heard a little about this, and now an article in this week’s New Yorker describes a voyage on this new transportation frontier.  If you don’t have a subscription, it’s worth buying this issue.  Last July, Keith Gessen travelled aboard a Danish ship carrying iron ore from Murmansk, Russia to Huanghua, China.  As he recounts the trip Gessen talks about life on the ship, the melting ice cap, the disruption of the habitat for fish and seals and polar bears, and the terrible new Chinese harbor.  In many ways it’s a relatively routine story of time aboard ship -- which is what makes it scary.