Once a frozen and impassable wilderness, the warming Arctic has become the setting for a new “Great Game.” Like the imperial powers that engaged in that fabled (and largely ill-fated) 19th-century colonial venture, five Arctic nations are jockeying to control the increasingly strategic polar region and its wealth of untapped resources. Rising temperatures and receding ice have made Arctic waters and the land around and beneath them accessible to shipping, fishing, scientific research and mineral extraction. With vast stores of critical resources at stake, this race will shape the global future. Here’s the Breakdown.
509 years later …
John Cabot sailed from England in 1497 seeking a “Northwest Passage” to Asia via the Arctic. He failed. More died trying, including a combined crew of 129 from two British ships that set sail in 1845. Norway’s Roald Amundsen finally completed the voyage in 1906 with six crew members on a 70-foot sloop. Since 2007, each summer the ice temporarily recedes enough to open the route. In 2024, 1,781 ships entered the Arctic — primarily fishing vessels and cargo ships — up 40% in a decade.
The last polar trek
In 2014, 46 years after a Minnesota insurance salesman led the first expedition to indisputably reach the North Pole over the ice, two Colorado-based explorers completed what is likely the last such trek on foot. One-fifth of the polar ice cap has disappeared since 1979. Arctic temperatures are rising at nearly four times the planetary rate.
1,669 trillion cubic feet
That’s the estimate of natural gas in the Arctic, more than all of Russia: about 30% of undiscovered global reserves along with 13% of undiscovered oil. Last year, the U.S. started offering oil and gas leases on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s 1.56 million-acre coastal plain, where up to 12.8 billion barrels of oil deposits await. Oil drilling in the adjacent Chukchi Sea entails a 75% risk of a major spill, per the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
920 pounds
That’s the weight of rare earth elements built into each F-35 fighter jet. Fifteen of the 60 minerals deemed “critical” to U.S. economic or national security are rare earth elements. More than 70% of rare earth minerals are mined in China; 90% are processed there. Demand is expected to almost triple by 2030. Greenland alone has 1.5 million tons of rare-earth deposits like neodymium and dysprosium, critical to smartphones, hybrid cars, wind turbines and Tesla’s new humanoid robots.
69 military bases
That’s the best estimate of staffed facilities in the Arctic between Russia (32), Norway (15), Canada (eight), Denmark/Greenland (three), Iceland (one) and the U.S. (10, but just one inside the Arctic Circle). Russia has reportedly reopened 13 Soviet-era airfields among 50 refurbished installations in the region since 2007. Arctic defense is seen as one reason Canada bought 88 American F-35 fighter jets. Russia just added a combat ship to its fleet of more than 40 icebreakers, eight of them nuclear-powered. The U.S. has three, plus 17 in the works. China has four.
“If Washington does not resolve the deficiencies and contradictions of its Arctic strategy soon, it may find that it has already lost the new Great Game.” — Heather A. Conley, nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, writing for Foreign Affairs
‘Near-Arctic State’
China joined the fray in 2018, claiming this title through a State Council white paper on Arctic policy. By 2024, the Chinese and Russian militaries were flexing in the region with joint coast guard patrols and naval exercises. U.S. and Canadian jets intercepted a Sino-Russian bomber patrol near Alaska. Russian and Chinese warships both patrol near the Aleutian Islands.
-1,200 meters
The Arctic Ocean is shallow compared to the mean depths of its counterparts, like the Atlantic (-3,646 meters) and Pacific (-4,080 meters). Nearly a third of its floor is continental shelf. The Eurasian Shelf is 930 miles wide, largest in the world. Russia holds 53% of Arctic coastline with 14,999 miles. There are 36,563 islands in Canada’s Arctic Archipelago, inhabited since 2500 B.C.E. Less than 40% of Alaska’s seabed has been mapped; the NOAA plans to finish mapping the Arctic coastal zone by 2030.
This story appears in the January/February 2026 issue of Deseret Magazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.