‍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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‍USCGC Healy’s Operational Mission Briefs: 2001-2025

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‍Following this maiden shakedown transit of the Arctic and NWP, Healy conducted annual Arctic voyages. These missions were principally to support scientific research objectives. It is remarkable how much is not known about the Arctic region. This gives you an inkling of that.

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‍Her maiden scientific voyage was in September 2001, during which she was the second US surface ship to reach the North Pole. The German icebreaker Polarstern accompanied her. She mapped 1,100 nm of the Gakkel Ridge, the only unmapped undersea ridge at the time, and discovered twelve undersea volcanoes. Among other results, two hull-mounted sonar systems produced a high-resolution map of the ridge.

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‍I’ll note that Russia has been studying the central Arctic to assess whether the Gakkel Ridge and others should be included in its claim on the continental shelf. Additionally, China has been researching this area.

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‍In 2003, Healy deployed for “Operation Deep Freeze “ to the Antarctic to along with the USCGC Polar Star to resupply McMurdo Station. Deep Freeze is a military mission to ensure that supply and fuel ships can access McMurdo through the Ross Sea. Elements of the National Science Foundation (NSF) operate at McMurdo. Healy had less than three weeks' notice of this mission. She escorted a freighter and tanker in and out of the ice.

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‍In Autumn 2003, Healy’s crew studied the slopes of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. She recovered 12 oceanographic moorings deployed to the region earlier to examine the outflows from the Chukchi Sea into the Arctic Ocean.

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‍In June 2005, Healy went out to obtain expanded sections of Holocene (current geological epoch, the last 11,700 years) and older sediment from the North American continental slope between Barrow and the Arctic’s Northwind Ridge. The overall goal was to develop a pan-Arctic stratigraphy. 

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‍Her next mission was again to the North Pole, accompanied by the Swedish icebreaker Oden in September 2005. This was her second voyage to the North Pole. The objective here was to demonstrate Healy’s ability to access remote, ice-covered ares. She also shared scientific research duties with the Oden. The Healy worked to gather data on the palaeoclimate (past climates) and Arctic Ocean’s past history and map ocean floors, with a focus on the Alpha, Mendeleyev, and Lomonosov Ridges.

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‍In 2006, the Healy departed from Everett, Washington, to support research teams in the Arctic. One test was to conduct a cold-water familiarization dive about 500 miles from Barrow, Alaska. Lt. Jessica Hill and PO2 Steven Duque died during this dive. 

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‍The two dove in 29-degree water intending to conduct two 20-minute shallow-water exercises at depths of 20 ft. However, they plunged to 220 ft. and 189 ft. below the surface, far below the 20-ft. plan. They lost their buoyancy, ran out of air, became unconscious, and ruptured their lungs.

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‍The Healy’s top three officers were found to be in dereliction of duty and received letters of reprimand and admonition. The mission was said to be poorly planned and poorly executed.

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‍Healy took 43 scientists from ten different research projects for her 2007 cruise to the Arctic in April. They took samples to measure conductivity, temperature, and depth; mud; plankton and copepod organisms; iron traces; larvae, etc. They deployed Argos Drifters that use floats to observe temperature, salinity, and currents. They spotted, netted, and tagged seals, and took blood and skin samples, and the list goes on.

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‍The voyage from March through May 2008 was a Bering Sea Spring Ice Expedition focused on the Bering Sea ecosystem. She went back to the Bering Sea in July and again in August, this time to the western Beaufort Sea. In September 2008, the Healy took scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Natural Resources Canada, Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), to conduct bathymetric and geophysical surveys in the Arctic Beaufort Sea. 

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‍In March 2009, Healy sailed south of Kodiak Island close to mainland Alaska and recovered at Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian chain to investigate patch dynamics of apex predators, specifically walrus, in relation to the distribution of food supplies on the sea floor.  “Patch dynamics” involve the tracking of predator movements.

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‍In April 2009 through late May, Healy departed Dutch Harbor to study the transition from spring to winter conditions in the Bering Sea. In September 2009 Healy went out to the Bering Sea with the Canadian Coast Guard Ship (CCGS) Louis S. St-Laurent to help define the North American continental shelf.

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‍In 2010, Healy conducted a U.S.–Canada United Nations Convention on the Law (UNCLOS) of the Sea Extended Continental Shelf Mapping Expedition in collaboration with the CCGS Louis S. St. Laurent. Healy sailed 150 nm farther north than planned to obtain needed mapping and collected over 1,000 lbs. of geological samples. She performed dredging operations to a depth of up to three miles.

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‍In 2011, Healy collaborated with researchers from NASA to study the refractive properties of sunlight in the Arctic. She also mapped the Extended Continental Shelf in collaboration with CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent and studied organic carbon and its levels in the Arctic water column.

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‍Healy escorted the Russian-flagged Renda fuel tanker in 2012 through tough ice in the Bering Sea. The tanker delivered 1.3 million gallons of fuel to ensure electricity in Nome, Alaska. Nome had suffered a critical fuel shortage after a severe fall storm.

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‍In 2013, Healy took a team of researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and Oregon State University to the eastern Beaufort Sea in the Arctic. They found evidence of a massive flood of fresh water in the western Arctic near where Canada’s Mackenzie River enters the Arctic Ocean. 

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‍Scripps reported, “The abrupt climate change triggered by the freshwater inundation ended more than 2,000 years of warming … The freshwater from glaciers made its way from the Arctic to the north Atlantic Ocean … That disruption caused substantial cooling in Europe … Overall trends of warming or cooling on Earth are not linear but are punctuated by reversals and accelerations such as this one. “

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‍The Coast Guard conducted Exercise Arctic Shield 2014 from January through November 2014 in the Seward Peninsula, Bering Strait, and the Northern Alaska Continental Shelf. Coast Guard cutters Stratton, Healy,  Alex Haley, and MH-60 Jayhawk helicopters deployed to a forward operating location in Barrow. This was the first MH-60T deployment to Stratton. Among other tasks, Arctic Shield was a month-long scientific expedition to demonstrate and evaluate oil spill tools, technologies, and techniques. This becomes important as Arctic shipping increases, especially shipping carrying oil and LNG.

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‍As an aside, the USCGC Stratton is a National Security Cutter (NSC). It is an open ocean cutter that can serve as a command and control center in the most demanding maritime environment. 

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‍In October 2015, Healy became the first US surface ship to reach the North Pole unaccompanied. She did this again on her fourth mission in September 2022. She had reached the Pole twice before but was accompanied.

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‍On this mission, Healy carried 50 scientists, students, and technicians to conduct a GEOTRACES expedition, August 9 through October 15. GEOTRACES is an international research program focused on the marine biogeochemical cycles of trace elements and isotopes that might result from rapid climate change.

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‍In 2016, Healy conducted an Arctic West Summer 2016 (AWS-16) mission covering over 20,000 nms collecting biological data in the Arctic, and a hydrographic survey of the Alaskan Northern Slope and Beringian Margin seafloor. 

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‍In 2017, Healy retired to the East Siberian and Laptev Seas, testing new technologies (like drones, 3D printers), and responding to regional needs, including disaster relief in Western Alaska after storms. This is voyage was in the vicinity of the Russian NSR. In May, she conducted flight operations in the Puget Sound area with a USCG MH-65 helicopter from Port Angeles, Washington. NOAA also conducted tests of uncrewed wind-propelled and solar power surface vehicles, tests conducted from the Healy’s bridge.

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‍In 2018, Healy conducted a four-month deployment in the Arctic to study biological processes on Alaska’s Continental Shelf, upper-level ocean stratification and sea ice in the Beaufort Sea, and the effects of the Pacific Ocean inflow to the Arctic.

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‍During 2019, Healy conducted a 73-day deployment. While in the Chukchi Sea, the crew deployed oceanographic buoys and mapped uncharted waters. The mission also included buoy deployments to collect depth data for the Alaskan Arctic Coast Port Access Route Study (AACPARS). This study is to determine a preferred vessel route from Utqiaġvik, Alaska, to the U.S.-Canada border.

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‍In 2021, the USCGC Healy conducted 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 have been concerns that there were gaps in hydrographic mapping in the Arctic.

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‍In 2022, Healy and a team of NSF scientists reached the North Pole for the ship’s third visit there, and the second visit unaccompanied, the first in 2015. The mission measured key physical oceanographic, ecosystem, and carbon system parameters to establish a baseline for this region of the Arctic Ocean. Healy made the transit easily because the ice was thin with multiple leads. This was attributed to favorable south winds, and the ice did not seem to be very thick.

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‍In July 2023, Healy departed on the Arctic Summer 2023 circumnavigation deployment. She began by supporting the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and ONR’s Arctic Mobile Observation System (AMOS), which focused on developing technologies for continuous, long-term scientific observations in the Arctic marine environment. The Healy then partnered with several scientific organizations for a month-long Nansen and Amundsen Basins Observational System (NABOS) mission. They collected data to understand the circulation of Atlantic water into the Arctic using mooring buoys and conductivity, temperature, and density sensors.

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‍During the 2023 mission, Healy sailed for extended periods just outside Russia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Healy was the first US government surface ship to get close to the EEZ. She was servicing probes of the NABOS and deployed nine long-term subsurface mooring arrays. Healy also went into the Laptev Sea, where moorings are located, and then proceeded to Tromsø, Norway.

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‍The Russian Akademik Nemchinov left the port of Pevek toward the Healy and followed her.

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‍Healy conducted three separate Arctic missions in 2024. The first was to the Beaufort Sea to service underwater moorings installed to collect data about oceanic conditions, such as currents between the Bering and Canadian Beaufort Sea. The second took scientists on a cruise through the NWP to Greenland. The third was meant to collect high-resolution data on ocean and climate change across the Arctic basin for the Global Ocean Ship-Based Hydrographic Investigations Program. 

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‍Healy conducted a 129-day patrol to the Arctic Ocean in June 2025 and entered the East Siberian and Laptev Seas along Russia’s NSR, resembling her 2023 mission, which was cut short by an engine fire. Its mission was to deploy and service instruments for the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and its Arctic Mobile Observing System AMOS). She will also study ice dynamics and water circulation patterns for the Nansen and Amundsen Basins Observational System (NABOS) and others.

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‍In September 2025, Healy was dispatched to monitor two Chinese research vessels operating within the US Exclusive Economic Zone. The Zhong Shan Da Xue and Ji Di were observed 230 miles north of Utqiagvik, Alaska; the Ji Di was within 265 miles of the same location. 

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‍The Coast Guard in August spotted five Chinese ships sailing in the US Arctic waters. The ships included Ji Di, Zhong Shan Da Xue Ji Di – spotted this week – and Chinese-flagged research vessels Xue Long 2, Shen Hai Yi Hao, and Tan Suo San Hao.

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‍In October 2025, Healy diverted to respond to a disaster in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta area of western Alaska when Typhoon Halong struck. The Healy diverted to provide disaster relief and conduct search and rescue operations. More than 1,500 people were displaced, flooding was significant, and towns were evacuated. Capt. Christopher Culpepper, USCG commander for Western Alaska, said,

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‍“Several of these villages have been completely devastated, absolutely flooded, several feet deep. This took homes off of foundations. This took people into peril, where folks were swimming, floating, trying to find debris to hold onto in the cover of darkness.”

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‍The storm damaged bulk fuel tanks and other fuel storage facilities. Culpepper commented, “These facilities are those that which the communities rely upon for home heating oil, subsistence through winter, for travel, for fuel, for vehicles, boats, aircraft, and they’re critical assets.”

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‍New US Coast Guard Ice Breaker: Two plans

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