Carving Up the Arctic

By Richard Stengel / Managing Editor

The landscape at the top of the world has always had a frozen allure. It was the imaginary precinct of explorers who dreamed about a Northwest Passage and industrialists who fantasized about the oil and gas reserves under the ice. But as a new study showed, that landscape is changing radically: the ice cap is the smallest it has been in recorded history. That change has ushered in the first great gold rush of the 21st century as the countries along the Arctic Circle stake claims to territory and resources thousands of feet under the melting crust.

To get a firsthand view of the new Great Game, James Graff, our London-based senior editor, journeyed to the village of Resolute in Canada's remote Nunavut territory, where the Canadian government plans to build a military training center to safeguard the coming economic bounty. And our Berlin bureau chief, Andrew Purvis, set off for the isolated Norwegian outpost of Hammerfest, a template for future Arctic boomtowns.

The two men encountered very different realities in the Arctic--and different reactions from locals. In Hammerfest, where reindeer graze in the glow of a gas flare, Purvis found Norwegians delighted by the rewards from a natural-gas extraction plant. In Resolute, the native Inuit are not so sanguine about the benefits of balmy weather. One man invited Graff to watch a videotape of his 16-year-old daughter killing her first polar bear, a rite of passage that is under threat as the melting ice reduces the bear population. For the Inuit, says Graff, "the idea that a warmer Arctic would be an easy place to live would occur only to someone from the South."

The New Orleans Debate

Two months ago, I wrote that TIME would sponsor a presidential debate in New Orleans. I'm delighted to join hands with a local organization spearheading that effort: Women of the Storm, a nonpartisan group of women whose families were affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. They have already persuaded six candidates to write a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates supporting the idea. "A debate would keep a spotlight on New Orleans and the challenges we face," says Anne Milling, founder of Women of the Storm. "We're not whole yet."

The commission will decide next month, but it should be an easy call. There's no better place to debate the future of American government--its possibilities and responsibilities as well as its limits and faults--than where so much went so tragically wrong. New Orleans is still an almost blank canvas, and the next President should be required to explain how he or she intends to help fill it in. A vision of success in New Orleans will comprise specific ideas about jobs, education, health care, housing, water, the environment, spending and pork-barrel politics. But it should also illuminate how the candidates view the role of the Federal Government and the next leader's responsibilities to U.S. citizens. That's important for all of America.

I'd like to know what you think about this, but I also want to ask you to support the idea. Please write to me at [email protected] and we will forward your letters to the commission.

Richard Stengel, Managing Editor