A Native corporation's decision Monday to ask a Russian icebreaker to deliver an emergency shipment of fuel added an exclamation point to Alaska demands that the U.S. Coast Guard boost its Arctic presence as climate change opens ice-locked regions to development.

"This is an example where we have to increase our icebreaking capability and have the ability to receive fuel in these ports, because we're going to have a lot more activity up north," said Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska.

The Coast Guard has reported an increase in vessel traffic through the Bering Strait and expects more as tourism, Arctic shipping and petroleum development ramp up in coming years.  

The Renda, a 371-foot double-hulled vessel that recently muscled through five-foot thick ice, was the only ship the Sitnasuak Native corporation could find to break through Nome’s sea ice and deliver 1.5 million gallons of fuel to the town of 3,600, said Jason Evans, Sitnasuak chairman.

The unusual fuel delivery, apparently unprecedented in Western Alaska, arose because sea ice around Nome recently prevented a fuel barge operated by an Alaska company from delivering the fuel.   

When Sitnasuak officials received news of the cancellation seven days ago, they began a global search  for ice-class vessels that could do the trick, said Evans.

The U.S. didn't have many options, he said. The Coast Guard's medium-duty ice-class vessel, Healy, is currently conducting scientific research outside Nome, but it drafts too deep to get within a mile of Nome's shore. An ice tug would have been needed to finish cutting a path to Nome's docks.

But the ice-capable tugs owned by Cook Inlet Tug and Barge weren't available. They are dedicated to Cook Inlet for the winter, said Evans.

He learned that sophisticated ice-breaking technology exists in Norway, which hopes to expand its lucrative offshore oil drilling into icier waters. But ships operating near that country were too far away to help.

Sitnasuak also looked into placing a 50,000-gallon fuel tank on an ice-breaking ferry owned by the Mat-Su Borough. The ship is supposed to break through two feet of ice, but it hasn't yet been tested for that purpose, Evans said.

That left only the privately owned Renda, one of eight marine tankers in Russia that can punch through thick sea ice, said Evans. He couldn't find similar ships in the U.S. There are none in the North Pacific or Arctic seas, though they do exist in the Great Lakes, said Mikhail Sheshtakov, supply and logistics manager for Vitus Marine.

Sitnasuak contracted with Alaska-based Vitus Marine to hire the Renda, which is expected to deliver the fuel later this month. It first must obtain U.S. Coast Guard approval and line up customs requirements.

Shell Oil, which hopes to explore for oil in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas beginning this summer, is building its own icebreakers to support those operations. The company is spending about $350 million to have Edison Chouest Offshore build the Nanuq and Aiviq, 300-foot-long ships known as ice-class anchor handlers, said Curtis Smith, a spokesman for Shell in Alaska.  

Evans said his company's search highlighted the nation's limits in the high Arctic. "We're definitely behind in terms of how many vessels we have and their abilities, and it's something we might want to look at with proposed offshore oil and gas development and new vessel routes opening in the Arctic," said Evans. "The Russians have known this is coming and have developed Arctic shipping expertise. The U.S. should also."

Some state and federal lawmakers are echoing that call, and want the Coast Guard to embrace a bigger Arctic role.

The nation's only two heavy-duty U.S. icebreakers are sidelined in Seattle, home of the Coast Guard's icebreaker fleet. The heavy-duty ice-class ship Polar Sea and its twin, the Polar Star, are 1970s-era cutters that have been repeatedly repaired to keep going past their original life span. That leaves the Healy as the nation's only functioning icebreaker. But the Healy is medium-duty, meaning it can't slam through the frozen seas as easily as the two Polar ships once did, using their hull like a maul to shatter stretches of ice.