‍USCGC Healy: “High North” is in play

‍“The Arctic is fast becoming a theater of global competition and militarization.”

‍Bjarni Benediktsson, former PM of Iceland

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‍Meet USCG Healy

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‍The US Coast Guard Cutter Healy (USCGC Healy WAGB 20) is the United States’ largest and most technologically advanced polar icebreaker. She is home-ported at Pier 46, Coast Guard Base Seattle, on Elliott Bay, assigned to the USCG Pacific Area, specifically to the Arctic District. This map displays the USCG Arctic Area of Responsibility (AOR). 

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‍Note that its AOR is limited to Alaska and its coastline, and the US-Alaska Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). An EEZ is a sea area extending out 200 nm in which a state has exclusive rights.

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‍Healy’s AOR is “Alaska-centric” as opposed to “Arctic-centric,” and covers only the far western NWP.

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‍The rest of the NWP lies in Canadian waters. Bill Blair, then Canada’s prime minister (PM), noted,

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‍“I've got nearly a quarter of a million kilometers (about 155 million miles) of coastal space. It's my responsibility in partnership with the United States to defend that.”

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‍I suspect that’s language President Trump does not like. He does not want to partner. He wants to own. 

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‍The USCG has three icebreaker cutters available for Arctic duty,

• USCGC Healy (WAGB 20) medium icebreaker, homeport Seattle
• USCGC Storis (WAGB 21), a medium icebreaker, made its inaugural voyage to the Arctic, homeport Juneau, once facilities are in place.
• USCGC Polar Star (WAGB 10), a heavy icebreaker, makes yearly deployments to McMurdo Station, Antarctica, homeport Seattle

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‍The Storis was commissioned in August 2025, known as the “Galloping Ghost of the Alaskan Coast.” Before that, Healy was the principal USCG presence in the Arctic District. Storis made her first voyage into the Arctic to relieve the Healy in September 2025 and monitor Chinese research vessels near Alaska.

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‍The Coast Guard classifies the Healy as a medium icebreaker. This means she can break through 4.5 feet of ice at three knots, or through even thicker ice by backing up and ramming the ice. Older ice can be as thick as 13 feet and ridges 20 feet. In 2025, the ice thickness in the NWP averaged from less than three feet to about six feet from roughly June through November.

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‍Healy’s missions are to serve as the U.S. Coast Guard's primary high-latitude research vessel, supporting scientific exploration in the Arctic, while also conducting vital Coast Guard operations like search and rescue, law enforcement, environmental protection, and maritime situational awareness in polar regions. She transits mostly the Arctic, but has gone to the Antarctic as well.

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‍Captain Jeffrey Garrett, USCG, was the first commander of the USCGC Healy. In 2025, then Rear Admiral Garrett, USCG (Ret.), described the dominant characteristics of an icebreaker. 

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‍He said an icebreaker’s job is to enable mobility, being able to get where you want to go, whenever you want to go. He said you need a “lot of power, a very strong hull, one which has been designed to get through ice efficiently.” He also noted you need significant endurance, noting, “There are no gas stations in the Polar Regions.” He described the icebreaker as “a command and control facility with helicopters, extra berthing, configurable work spaces and heavy lift cranes, all kinds of boats, (and a platform where ) you can put containers onboard and modularize your mission suite.”

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‍Healy is 420 ft. long, her beam is 82 ft., and her draft with a full load is 29 ft. Cruising speed is 12 knots, and maximum speed is 17 knots. The Healy has a crew of 19 officers, 12 chief petty officers (CPO), and 54 enlisted, plus scientific researchers, who can number up to 50. In sum, that’s about 135 maximum on the crew.

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‍Healy has five decks. If interested, you can see the deck plans for the Healy online.

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‍Healy has four powerful Sulzer 12ZAV40S diesel-electric engines producing 46,000 HP. These engines drive two fixed-hitch, four-bladed 16 ft. propellers. Healy’s endurance is 60 days with a 1.5 million-gallon diesel capacity.

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‍An Aloft Conning Station above the main bridge is used to serve as an observation post that helps guide the Healy through the paths of least resistance and identifies difficult ice ahead. 

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‍The science space includes multiple laboratories and workstations, a conference room, a lounge, and a library for the scientists. There is a medical treatment and examination room, two wards, and a medical supply storeroom, plus a computer lab.

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‍Healy has a barber shop, ship’s store, a galley and mess hall, laundry room, officer and chief petty officer lounges, gym, high-capacity cranes to deploy heavy equipment, and lots of storage space for Arctic gear, fire hoses/suppressants, etc. She has an Arctic Security Boat, a Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel (LCVP), and a helipad able to hold a USCG helicopter, such as the MH-65 Dolphin, along with a hangar able to support two MH-65s.

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‍The Healy has conducted missions in the Canadian Arctic region and made port calls in Norway, primarily in Tromsø; Nuuk, Greenland; Reykjavik, Iceland; and Copenhagen, Denmark.

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‍Canada vs. the US in the NWP

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‍There is an unresolved issue regarding US maritime activities in the Canadian segment of the NWP, the largest segment.

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‍Canada has insisted that the USCG ask Canada’s permission to enter its sovereign waters. Canada maintains that the entire Canadian Arctic is internal water. The US disagrees, asserting that the NWP is an accumulation of straits open to international transit at will.

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‍There is a UN Convention on the Law of the Sea called UNCLOS. It establishes a legal framework for all marine and maritime activities. The US is not officially a party to UNCLOS, but says related US law largely agrees with its provisions.

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‍UNCLOS stipulates that ships from any nation can sail freely on the high seas beyond a country’s 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and territorial waters (12 nm).

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‍The problem is that Canada maintains all of the NWP lies within its EEZ. Therefore, Canada insists that the US must request permission to sail its ships in the NWP.

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‍Back up to August 1985. The USCG icebreaker Polar Sea transited the NWP from Greenland to Alaska and did not seek Canadian permission. This created a firestorm of protest in Canada and surfaced a debate between the US and Canada. 

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‍In January 1988, Secretary of State George Schultz and Canadian Foreign Secretary of State for External Affairs Joseph Clark signed an agreement that said,

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‍“The Government of the United States pledges that all navigation by US icebreakers within waters claimed by Canada to be internal will be undertaken with the consent of the Government of Canada.”

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‍In 2021, the USCGC Healy planned a trip through the NWP from Seward, Alaska, to Nuuk, Greenland, and back. Its scientific mission was to map the ocean floor in the NWP. There were concerns then that there were gaps in hydrographic mapping in the Arctic, which was not suitable for submarine operations.

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‍The USCG agreed to honor Canada’s position for this trip and requested permission, but did so grudgingly. Admiral Karl Schultz, Commandant of the USCG, responded to the Canadian requirement in March 2021,

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‍“The Arctic continues to be a region of growing geostrategic importance, where the maxim ‘presence equals influence’ rings true.”

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‍The comment “presence equals influence” means you have to be there to shape events, which I construe to mean the US intends to be there with or without Canadian permission.

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‍In 2019, Russia issued a rule that a ship desiring to transit the NSR must submit an application to the Russian government 45 days in advance, detail the characteristics of the ship or ships, and bring Russian pilots aboard foreign ships.

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‍In reaction, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo commented in  May 2019, 

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‍“The Pentagon warned just last week that China could use its civilian research presence in the Arctic to strengthen its military presence, including by deploying submarines to the region as a deterrent against nuclear attacks.

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‍“In the Northern Sea Route, Moscow already illegally demands that other nations request permission to pass, requires Russian maritime pilots to be aboard foreign ships, and threatens to use military force to sink any that fail to comply.”

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‍On the surface, therefore, Pompeo did not like the Russian ruling. 

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‍The US is in a pickle here. On the one hand, it has agreed to ask permission to transit the NWP; on the other, it opposes a similar Russian requirement for a transit of the NSR.

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‍There is another “pickle juice” issue. If the US did not abide by the Canadian requirement and stipulated that US military forces do not have to ask permission, then it would open Pandora’s box to Russian and Chinese military forces going into the NWP without requesting Canadian agreement.

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‍And what about this? “What if” Russian and/or Chinese military forces were to ask Canada’s permission to transit the NWP, and Canada agreed? My guess is the USN would then consider blockading key chokepoints to prevent such transits.

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‍The US Navy periodically transits the Taiwan Strait as part of freedom of navigation operations (FONOP). In December 2018, Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer said the Navy would be conducting FONOPs in the Arctic, saying, “We need to be doing FONOPS in the northwest — in the northern passage.”

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‍Admiral John Richardson, USN (Ret.), while he was the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), said,

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‍“We want to make sure that as navigation channels open up, consistent with our sovereign responsibilities — we are an Arctic nation — that we are getting up and remaining familiar with operating in that high north.”

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‍Admiral Karl Schulz, the USCG commandant, added, 

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‍“Doing something where we sortie a Coast Guard cutter with a Navy ship, you know, above the Arctic Circle. We’d be very interested in that. It’s not a FONOP. I would say that’s a, you know, just acclimating-to-the-region kind of op. FONOPS — I think that term, you gotta be careful. I think in the Arctic right now, if we did something with the Navy, it’s more about just showing our ability to project capability up there.”

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‍In sum, the two sides are agreeing to disagree, and the US Navy and USCG are asking permission.

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‍USCGC Healy’s Maiden Voyage

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