Marine Exchange of Alaska and a watchdog initiative called Arctic Watch are expanding the monitoring of marine vessels in Arctic waters.
This summer Marine Exchange of Alaska, the non-governmental agency that acts as a middle man between mariners and the Coast Guard, added more marine safety sites in remote areas around Kodiak Island, Kivalina and Kotzebue to be able to communicate with vessels via radio.
A Jotron VHF radio system was installed on an existing tower on Spiridon Mountain, on the northwest side of Kodiak Island last month. In an emailed statement, Kimberly Valverde, the communications director for Marine Exchange of Alaska, said this new equipment picks up VHF distress calls from anywhere in the Shelikof Strait. Just last year the Marine Exchange monitored more than 700 vessels that were transiting the Shelikof Strait.
Steve White, the executive director of the organization, said the plan is to continue expanding coverage for vessels transiting in Alaska’s Arctic waters.
“We also plan on putting on sites that will cover VHF comms all the way across the Bering Strait. That’s going to be at Tin City. You can see a little one in Wales,” he said.
Marine Exchange of Alaska plans to add VHF sites in Tin City, Wales, Nome and Stebbins before the end of this year if possible. But White said the timing for completing that work is still up in the air.
This buildout comes at a time when shipping traffic continues to increase in Arctic waters, especially in the Bering Strait region.
Every day during the summer months international and domestic vessels sail with a variety of environmentally hazardous goods around Western Alaska’s coastline, including fuel tankers, automobiles and liquefied natural gas [LNG].
Last month the first transit of 2025 season via the Northeast Passage was a Russian LNG tanker called the Georgiy Ushakov that sailed through the Bering Strait alongside a nuclear icebreaker.
Now the majority of those vessels are able to be tracked and monitored thanks to the partnership between Marine Exchange of Alaska and the newly formed initiative called Arctic Watch.
Marine Exchange also staffs a 24/7 watch center in Juneau that monitors all of those sites and vessels transiting in the surrounding areas. If a vessel in distress calls for help via radio nearby, then the organization coordinates with response agencies like the Coast Guard to send help to that vessel.
“And what we try and do is prevent all those things from happening so you don’t have to be cleaning up oil, you don’t have to be issuing fines, you don’t have to be pulling people out of the water who are in peril; really trying to find a way to make things safer up there," White said.
Many of those distress calls were not being heard by the Coast Guard due to equipment failures and outages with the agency’s emergency VHF radio system in recent years.
The partnership between Marine Exchange of Alaska and Arctic Watch includes the predominantly Alaska Native communities in the Bering Strait region, keeping them engaged and informed about the hundreds of vessels sailing by their shores.
Kaare Sikuaq Erickson is originally from Unalakleet in the Norton Sound but now lives in Anchorage and is the engagement lead for Arctic Watch. He said the group has plans to provide training for locals and build capacity in the Bering Strait region.
“So we got this funding for this year and next year, and we put aside funding to recruit a kind of network of folks where we could pay them stipends to kind of stay involved and to get some further training and utilizing the tools," he explained.
Erickson said he will continue communicating with the tribes and communities in the Bering Strait region as more opportunities and training become available.
More information about Arctic Watch and the vessels transiting around coastal Alaska can be found online at Arcticwatch.org.
