The U.S. Coast Guard commissioned its first additional polar icebreaker in 25 years in Juneau on Sunday, Aug. 10, marking what officials called a new era in Arctic activity for the United States.

The newly rechristened Storis, formerly the oil field supply ship Aiviq, is the first in a series of icebreakers expected to join the Coast Guard in the coming years. The Storis and subsequent ships, officials said, are critical for the United States to maintain its sovereignty and control of its borders in and near the Arctic Ocean. 

Alaska U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan was one of several members of Congress who secured funding for the Coast Guard to purchase the 360-foot-long Storis for $125 million under a special contract and operating arrangement during the Biden administration. The purchase deal passed Congress after years of lobbying and political donations by the ship’s former owners.

The Aiviq, built to support Shell’s oil drilling operations in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska, was available because of a disaster that saw Shell’s drilling rig break loose from the Aiviq during a 2013 storm in the Gulf of Alaska. The rig ran aground in the Kodiak archipelago and Shell abandoned its drill plans for the Arctic. 

The Aiviq was modified after post-disaster reviews found flaws in its design, and it went on to serve under contract with the Australian government in Antarctica. Then, the U.S. government became interested in the ship to fill a gap in Arctic coverage.

The U.S. Navy has no icebreakers, which leaves the Coast Guard as the agency in charge of icebreaking operations, critical for opening frozen seas to commerce, research and military missions. The Coast Guard currently has just one heavy icebreaker, and that ship is typically assigned to help operations in Antarctica. That leaves the medium icebreaker Healy as the only U.S. icebreaker available for general-purpose missions in the Arctic. 

A 2023 analysis by the Coast Guard concluded that the service needs eight to nine polar icebreakers, including four or five heavy ships and four or five medium ones to perform its assigned missions.

“Russia has more than 50 operational icebreakers, many nuclear-powered, many weaponized,” Sullivan said. “China, which has no Arctic territory, is building a polar fleet and is spending a lot of time off our shores, including this summer.”

As Sullivan spoke, China is operating at least five research icebreakers in international waters near Alaska.

The “Big Beautiful Bill” signed by President Donald Trump in July included almost $9 billion to build a series of heavy, medium and light ships.

Those include a series of heavy Arctic icebreakers larger than the Storis. The first of those, the Polar Sentinel, is expected to come from Bollinger Mississippi Shipbuilding in 2030, with additional ships every two years afterward.

The Storis is scheduled to be homeported in Juneau, where Sunday’s commissioning took place, but not for several years. For the time being, it will be homeported in Seattle. 

The Trump-signed budget measure includes $300 million for a new Coast Guard pier and other facilities in Juneau; construction has not begun, and no site has been finalized.

Both the Storis and the under-construction heavy icebreakers are too large to fit in the Coast Guard’s Kodiak base or in any port north of the Aleutian Islands. The Storis draws 34 feet, according to specifications published in 2013. The new heavy icebreakers are expected to have a similar draft. Either figure is deeper than what’s available in northern Alaska right now.

By the book, said Cmdr. Philip Baxa, chief of the Coast Guard’s aids to navigation and ice capabilities division, it takes the Coast Guard eight to 10 years to set up a new port from the time it’s chosen.

“We want to move much faster, but there’s a lot of work that has to be done to build out the pier and the shore infrastructure,” Lunday said.

He said things like housing and child care need to be available to accommodate Coast Guard personnel.

Currently, Juneau is experiencing major shortages of both.

The Storis, too, will need work and testing before it can fully perform its duties.

The Storis has a helipad, but a Coast Guard helicopter has never landed there, tried a mid-air hoist or refueled from the ship. Some labels throughout the ship still bear the name Aiviq, and the ship’s interior art includes photos from Louisiana bayous and New Orleans streets. In the ship’s mess hall are condiments bearing the names of southern grocery stores.

Since the spring, employees from Edison Chouest have been operating the Storis alongside enlisted Coast Guard members and officers, a unique setup for a Coast Guard ship.

After Shell discontinued its Alaska offshore drilling, Edison Chouest lobbied members of Congress and urged lawmakers to purchase the Aiviq for use by the federal government.

The Coast Guard initially resisted. In a 2016 hearing of the U.S. House’s Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee, then-Coast Guard Vice Commandant Charles Michel told lawmakers that “our current opinion is that the ship is not suitable for military service, without substantial refit.”

Then-Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, called Michel’s statement a “bulls**t answer” because the Aiviq would be asked to move ice, not perform military duties.

In 2022, after Young’s death in office, Congress passed the Don Young Coast Guard Authorization Act, which approved funding for the Coast Guard to buy a “United States built available icebreaker.”

The Coast Guard, which had been considering a Finland-built ship, switched to the Aiviq as the only available ship that met Congress’ qualifications. 

Subsequent reporting by ProPublica showed an extensive history of political donations by Edison Chouest to members of Congress, including Alaska’s delegation.

The new Storis is named after its predecessor, an icebreaker that was commissioned in 1942 and served until 2007, becoming the oldest commissioned Coast Guard cutter in the fleet at the time of its decommissioning and scrapping.

The Alaska Beacon is an independent, donor-funded news organization at Alaskabeacon.com.