Mia Bennett

Mia Bennett is a frequent contributor to The Maritime Executive magazine. Her research and writing focus on how commodities cycles, globalization, and climate change are affecting trade networks, transportation, and natural resource development in the Arctic.She holds an MPhil in Polar Studies and is currently a PHD candidate in the UCLA Department of Geography.

How a Norwegian Coastal Ferry Service Went Global

By Mia Bennett 2019-03-01 17:35:34

Six Januaries ago, I took a Hurtigruten ferry for an extremely reasonable price of about £60. Hurtigruten is the name of the legendary coastal service established in 1893 – before the Norwegians learned to lay roads and rails across their countryside and drill tunnels through their mountains – to deliver mail and supplies to the many isolated towns that dot the rugged coastline. Unlike in many other parts of the Arctic, year-round sailing around Norway’s coastline is possible...

2018: Recapping the Year in the Arctic

By Mia Bennett 2019-01-09 16:35:10

Planet Earth has completed another rotation around the sun, which has now set on the Arctic for the next three months. As polar winter sets in, I spoke with Eilis Quinn, a Radio Canada International (RCI) reporter specializing in the Arctic, about the events that took place up north over the past year. Our full conversation is available to listen to or read on RCI’s Eye on the Arctic page here. You can read on below for an elaboration...

How a Doomed Arctic Voyage Presaged Transpolar Flights

By Mia Bennett 2018-12-22 18:17:16

Last month, I flew from Los Angeles to Hong Kong on one of those sleek jets that fuse heaven and earth, a Boeing 777. The livery was painted in the green and white colors of Cathay Pacific, the Hong Kong-based airliner whose name combines the ancient word for China with the world’s largest ocean. We took off an hour before midnight from Los Angeles with the artificially illuminated desert spilling into the black waves beneath us. Bound for Asia, the...

Seated in the center from left to right are the Korean Arctic Ambassador Park Heung-kyeong, China’s Ambassador to the Arctic Gao Feng, and Japan’s Arctic Ambassador Eiji Yamamoto.

South Korea, an Unlikely Polar Pioneer, Hosts Arctic Conference

By Mia Bennett 2018-12-15 14:59:00

Over the weekend, as the temperature in Seoul plunged to -12°C, Koreans bundled up in the long puffy black parkas that seem to be this year’s signature winter wear in Asia’s capital of style. In the shopping district of Myeongdong, young people took to the streets to go shopping and enjoy the latest innovations in Korean street food like Oreo churros and egg bread (an entire egg cracked on top of a soft, pillowy oval cake). With the unusually cold...

When the Ice Melts, What Will Happen to Arctic Tourism?

By Mia Bennett 2018-10-03 23:33:38

Glimmering aurora have returned to light up northern night skies, meaning that summer is drawing to a close. With these seasonal changes, as the last berries were picked and the tundra turned to red, Arctic sea ice reached its minimum extent for the year. At 1.77 million square miles, the amount of ocean covered by ice was the sixth-lowest ever, tying 2008 and 2010. Sea ice extent has recovered slightly since reaching a record low in September 2012, which was...

Interview: 30 Years of Arctic Photography and Science

By Mia Bennett 2018-08-03 19:03:30

I recently spoke with Christoph Ruhsam, the polar photographer behind the new book, Frozen Latitudes, and honorary secretary of the Austrian Society for Polar Research. For Ruhsam, who works in the IT industry for a living and serves voluntarily as the Austrian Polar Research Institute’s honorary secretary, traveling to the Arctic has been a lifelong passion. Originally from Austria, he grew up close to the glaciers that for millennia have kept the top of the Alps in a deep freeze. But during his lifetime, he’s...

Underwater Tunnels Revolutionize the Faroes

By Mia Bennett 2018-06-03 20:13:04

55 million years ago, the Northeast Atlantic Ocean opened up between Europe and Greenland, pushing the two landmasses apart. In the middle of this incipient churning ocean, massive volcanic eruptions spewed volcanic ash and bombs and layer upon layer of dark gray lava basalt flows. Over millennia, the basalt grew six kilometers thick, forming the geologic base of the Faroe Islands. Today, only 900 meters of the ancient volcanic rock rises above the water. Ripping winds and heaving seas have...

The Cost of the Bridge to Crimea

By Mia Bennett 2018-05-18 14:56:00

A little over four years after Crimea became separated from Ukraine and joined with Russia, a new $3.7 billion, 19-kilometer bridge from the mainland across the Kerch Strait has made the linkage of Russia’s newest territorial acquisition concrete. This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin jumped behind the wheel of a tangerine KAMAZ truck bedecked with miniature flags in order to lead a convoy across the bridge. Construction began in May 2015 under the supervision of Arkady Rotenberg, a legendary...

Qingdao: China?s Iron Gateway to the Arctic

By Mia Bennett 2018-05-06 20:46:55

In January, China released its first Arctic Policy. In the U.S., fearful headlines greeted the document, from The Wall Street Journal’s suspicion of whether a “new Cold War” was on the way to Foreign Policy’s proclamation that “China’s ready to cash in on a melting Arctic.” But beyond the headlines, what’s actually going on on the ground in China? What are the actual places driving China’s northern push, and what’s going on there? To find out, earlier this week, I...

Emission Impossible

By Mia Bennett 2018-04-28 17:55:47

In a world of globalized trade, ships are often seen as a green alternative for moving goods from one place to another. As vessels glide across the oceans, they tend to remain “out of sight, out of mind” except when they come into port. Compared to exhaust-spewing trucks and trains rattling every day through local neighborhoods and airplanes roaring loudly overhead, ships seem a pleasant and even romantic mode of transportation. Small Fish? If only their carbon footprint is considered,...