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By Maureen McCall
“Go West, young man, go West … and grow up with the country” is a phrase attributed to Horace Greeley from the New York Daily Tribune back in 1865.
In 2025 the phrase might be updated to “Go North, young man, go North” as optimism rises about the oil and gas and critical minerals potential in the Arctic.
Optimism about the size of the prize of Arctic hydrocarbons rose back in 2012 as the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued an assessment that the Arctic holds an estimated 13% (90 billion barrels) of the world’s undiscovered conventional oil resources and 30% of its undiscovered conventional natural gas resources.
U.S. shale production has grown more slowly in recent years (according to the EIA) which makes the challenging but ample reserves in Alaska more attractive. The Arctic could also be a vital supplier of critical minerals and the race for those minerals is “heating up the Arctic”. The Arctic Economic Council’s latest “Arctic Mining Report 2024” states that 31 out of the 34 materials essential for renewable energy technologies are found in the Arctic with Greenland having one of the world’s largest deposits of nickel and cobalt, while Alaska has one of the largest zinc mines globally. President Donald Trump’s Jan 20th executive order “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential” reopening vast areas for drilling and mining, and expediting permits has stoked enthusiasm and discussions of the challenges, geopolitical elements like tariffs, development costs, and project plans have begun.
I had the chance to catch up with Heather Exner-Pirot, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and speaker on the topic of scaling up investment in Canada’s North. Exner-Pirot recognizes the geopolitical motivations behind Arctic development, including energy transition, defence and supply chains that are overly dependent on China.
“Trump is talking about Greenland for its critical minerals,” Exner-Pirot said. “Canada’s talking about critical minerals and critical mineral alliances. I’m definitely in favour of developing the region. But the flip side of that is the economic drivers. The rhetoric has not been matched by commodity prices. Investment is still very difficult. Climate change doesn’t really make it cheaper. In many ways – it makes it more expensive because things like ice roads are more difficult to build because we have melting permafrost. The rhetoric and the reality are still far apart.”
The upside is that development would help communities and would help the Canadian military as much as it would help resource companies. Infrastructure may be expensive, but sharing the burden for things like fiber-optic communications connecting to a mine that could also go to communities or a NORAD site, could work.
I also spoke with Katie Kachur, VP of Government Relations West – Canadian Propane Association who further described the complications of Arctic development.
“The biggest challenge lies in balancing the unique energy needs of rural, remote, and Indigenous communities with the broader goals of reliability, affordability, and low emissions,” Kachur said. “Unlike urban centers, these communities often face limited access to traditional energy infrastructure and depend on solutions tailored to their geography, climate, and cultural priorities. They need an approach emphasizing energy choice—offering diverse and flexible energy options that meet these unique needs.”
A common theme to tackling Arctic energy challenges is emerging that reflects trends across Canada – direct engagement with Indigenous and remote communities to understand their energy requirements and co-develop solutions. Policies that recognize the importance of energy diversity and support equitable access to sustainable energy solutions are developing along with an emphasis on Indigenous ownership. The regulatory processes for projects in Northern Canada are also under the microscope. Streamlined regulatory is a common theme in 2025 in the North, spurred on by President Donald Trump’s orders to expedite federal permits to entice American investment and shrink timelines for building critical energy infrastructure. Projects, like the massive $44 billion Alaska LNG project need to attract investment due to the high costs of infrastructure in the Arctic. New York-based Glenfarne and the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation have an arrangement to develop the project and it has attracted interest from Japanese trading giant Mitsui, which has invested in LNG projects globally. The project involves developing natural gas resources on Alaska’s north slope with transportation via a 1,300 km pipeline to the proposed LNG plant. It is a project that Canadian interests could examine for strategies for project funding and approaches to development in harsh Arctic conditions.
Maureen McCall is an energy professional and Senior Fellow at the Frontier Center For Public Policy who writes on issues affecting the energy industry.
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