The race for the Arctic's natural resources

The area to the north of Canada's Northwest Territories is a forbidding landscape, where temperatures can easily reach -55C Photograph: Gautier Deblonde/freelance

Due to the effects of global warming, the polar region has become accessible to civilisation leading to a scramble for the resources it holds Photograph: Gautier Deblonde/freelance

The Canadian research ship HMS Amundsen, is monitoring changes in the Arctic Ocean, annoying Inuit polar bear hunters, who fare better when the ice is solid Photograph: Gautier Deblonde/freelance

The melting ice seems likely to open up the Northwest Passage, the fabled Arctic sea route linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, to year-round commercial shipping Photograph: Gautier Deblonde/freelance

This greater accessibility will transform how goods are shipped around the world – halving, for example, the distance by water between Japan and northern Europe Photograph: Gautier Deblonde/freelance

Last August, Russia dispatched a nuclear-powered icebreaker and two submersible craft to plant a Russian flag, housed in a titanium tube, on the seabed directly beneath the north pole Photograph: Gautier Deblonde/freelance

Nellie Cournoyea of the Inuvialuit Development Corporation. At -30C, which is an unremarkable temperature in the far north, the moisture in your nose freezes as soon as you step outside and breathe in Photograph: Gautier Deblonde/freelance

To reach the village of Tuktoyaktuk, in the extreme north of Canada's Northwest Territories, you first fly to Inuvik, a town of 4,000 people inside the Arctic Circle ... Photograph: Gautier Deblonde/freelance

... then you drive north. You can do this only in winter, because about a mile outside Inuvik the road comes to an end Photograph: Gautier Deblonde/freelance

A navigable Northwest Passage, along with an active oilfield, would turn Inuvik into a major regional hub, and the minuscule settlement of Tuktoyaktuk into a deep-water port Photograph: Gautier Deblonde/freelance

The Mad Trapper pub in Inuvik, which Oliver Burkeman describes as 'a large, windowless establishment with a slightly frontiersy feel' Photograph: Gautier Deblonde/freelance

The town has only one month of permanent darkness, in January, but even by March the sun barely rises above the horizon Photograph: Gautier Deblonde/freelance

Encircled by the various Arctic nations, there is the polar region itself; a breathtakingly huge and pristine wilderness, which may not stay that way for long Photograph: Gautier Deblonde/freelance