“It creates an awesome opportunity for Vancouver,” Spears later told The Province. “With melting ice, you’re going to get a change in perception and, all of a sudden, vessels that were restricted by the Panama Canal will be able to transit the Northwest Passage.”

That means larger ships could take a much shorter route from Vancouver to Northern Europe, Africa and parts of South America, without going around Cape Horn, he said. And for ships that normally go through the Panama Canal, a Northwest Passage route could cut about 9,000 kilometres off the journey, he said.

Bill Drew, executive director of the Churchill Gateway Development Corp. told delegates [to the Canada Maritime Conference] that the shipping season for non-ice-class vessels grows each year and now runs from July 20 to Nov. 5. He said that the captain of this year’s first ship, which arrived on July 22, told him: “There’s more ice in this glass than I saw coming in here last week.”