CANADA: Atoms for the Arctic

Long before Canada’s Prime Minister found a symbol of the nation’s undeveloped wealth and might in the frozen north, mineral hunters and military men sought ways to pry open the Arctic kingdom’s icebound riches. Last week from Ottawa came signs that the golden key has at last been found. It is nuclear power.

Word leaked out that the Department of Transport has a well-advanced plan to build the free world’s first atom-driven icebreaker. To displace 7,000 tons, the craft will have almost twice the power of a diesel-engined vessel, probably cost around $40 million, three times more than Canada’s diesel-powered icebreaker Labrador. To build the new ship, Canada will need help from the U.S., but since a Canadian icebreaker would be a major addition to joint U.S.-Canadian forces in the Arctic, Canadian planners expect Washington to give all technical assistance—and a hearty Godspeed. Most likely builder of the propulsion reactor: Hamilton’s Canadian Westinghouse Co., Ltd., whose U.S. parent company built the Nautilus’ reactor.

When it slides down the ways, Canada’s icebreaker will go a long way toward opening up previously inaccessible seas, will lengthen the navigation season in relatively mild northern waters by weeks —or months. Capable of crunching through 8-ft. ice floes, cruising for a solid year without refueling, it will be able to chart unexplored Arctic shore lines and ocean depths, dump supplies and heavy equipment on islands previously supplied by air alone, serve as a base for weather observations beyond present navigation limits. Said Northern Affairs Minister Alvin Hamilton last week: “No single project could do so much for the north.”