The increasing pace of climate change in the last two decades has brought the Arctic, a former geopolitical afterthought, into growing prominence on the global stage. Receding ice and melting tundra have made a cornucopia of rare earth metals and hydrocarbons ripe for extraction as well as opened new shipping lanes which have the potential to revolutionize how goods are moved around the planet. In this emerging environment is a budding balance of power which involves the most powerful actors in the world-system, two of which, the United States of America and the People's Republic of China, are the focus of this thesis. Their respective arctic policies shape the balance of power for not only themselves, but for all other actors in the theater. The United States' laissez faire attitude towards the Arctic has caused it to fall behind the progress of other powers in the region which could make it difficult to assert its influence in the theater in the future. China however has chosen to follow an ambitious arctic policy despite its geographical distance from the region, and has given the arctic a prominent position in its greater Belt and Road project, much to the suspicion of traditional arctic powers. Analyzed through a realist lens, the balance of power in the Arctic appears to be stable for the...

Arctic Canada has seen significant ecological changes since the 1990s, leading to sea ice melt, increased temperatures, and increased accessibility to the Northwest Passage. The increased accessibility to the Northwest Passage has allowed for vessels to easily access maritime routes that were not previously accessible. Changes to the Arctic landscape has led to the beginning of open water shipping seasons in Arctic waters, attracting international audiences for trade, tourism, fisheries, and other economic activity. This new passageway increases options for companies to reduce costs in shipping, while also facilitating new and emerging hazards and risks for operational vessels. Comprehensive risk analysis and full assessments need to be completed to aid policy- and decision-makers to support and manage the increasing maritime traffic in Canadian Arctic waters. To fill this knowledge gap, the overarching aim of this master’s level research was to identify and preliminarily evaluate a comprehensive list of hazards (impact drivers) and risks (future impacts) for Maritime ship operations within Arctic Canada and to complete a preliminary assessment of identified maritime shipping hazards and risks throughout Arctic Canada. Hazards and risks were identified using several text-based sources, including social media, grey literature, and peer reviewed journal articles, in order to conduct a comprehensive content analysis to identify the perspectives and trends emerging among the online community. Natural language processing methods were then used, such as word frequencies, word correlation, and topic modelling to identify key phrases, terminology, and thematic groups. This allowed for the creation of an inventory of relevant hazard and risk themes and categories that could be used as a strong basis for informing a risk analysis. Emerging themes included: sea ice, navigability issues, geopolitical concerns, and operational challenges, among others. Following the identification of hazard and risk factors, a ‘failure modes, effects, and criticality analysis’ (FMECA) approach was used, along with a consequence-probability Rettinger ix matrix, as means of performing a preliminary risk analysis. The method enables the collection of information regarding hazard and risk descriptors, consequence, probability, control mechanisms, impacts, and data quality information, to establish a validated risk rating score. Risk rating scores are calculated using consequences and probability scores to determine average risk ratings for individual hazards and risks and at the sector-based category level. A total of 154 variables were inventoried: 55 hazards were identified and 99 risks were noted that influence maritime ship operations in Arctic Canada. Five variables were classified as ‘VERY HIGH’: three hazards (hydrocarbon releases, transportation of dangerous goods, and multiyear sea ice) and two risks (community member displacement and socioeconomic impacts on indigenous peoples). Five thematic groups were seen as priority risk ratings, two of which identified with “HIGH” data quality indexes (Sea Ice, Environmental). A total of 35 hazards and 36 risks are recommended for further investigation, being classified with a ‘VERY HIGH’ or ‘HIGH’ data quality score. Results of this research supports a preliminary attempt at a comprehensive risk analysis that can be used in the future to conduct a full risk assessment.