The Chinese container ship Istanbul Bridge arrived in England from China after a 20-day journey via the Northern Sea Route. But locally, no one seemed to pay much attention.
Yesterday evening, a Chinese-owned container ship sailed into Felixstowe, the United Kingdom’s largest port. Though the vessel is on its own unremarkable, it had made a remarkable journey. In just 20 days, Istanbul Bridge had sailed from Ningbo, China via the frigid waters of Russia’s Northern Sea Route all the way to England.
Over the past decade and a half, hundreds of foreign vessels and container ships have sailed this mythical Arctic passage between Europe and Asia, which foiled European explorers in centuries past. In 2009, two German vessels ventured from South Korea to the Netherlands via the Northern Sea Route, marking the first foreign transit of the Russian waters. The president of Beluga Group, which owns the two ships, boasted to The New York Times, “The Arctic transit was not an experiment but the beginning of opening the route to outside traffic.”
Then, in 2013, the first container ship sailed the Northern Sea Route from Asia to Europe. Owned by Chinese state-owned shipping company COSCO, Yong Sheng made its way from Dalian to Rotterdam, which Guardian reporter Robin McKie pronounced “a truly historic journey.”
Now, for the third time in under two decades, history is repeating itself. When Istanbul Bridge set off from Ningbo, an industrial city of 9.4 million people, on 23 September, Chinese state-controlled newspaper Global Times stated, “’China-Europe Arctic Express’ means far more than just a new shipping route.” The government mouthpiece continued, “The opening of this route not only demonstrates the commercial viability of Arctic shipping and offers a new logistics route option for the global trade network, but also highlights China’s consistent commitment to cooperation and development in Arctic affairs.”
At this point, declarations of a new dawn for Arctic shipping remind me of restaurants that keep their “Grand Opening” banner hanging for years. Funnily enough, many of these can be found in Chinatowns like the one near where I grew up. So when reporters ask me what I think of yet another “pioneering” voyage, I often rain on their parade.
Despite my jadedness, it’s not every day that the opportunity arises to see a ship come straight out of the north. Living in London now, I could go to Gatwick and watch a plane touch down from Tromsø. But there is something different about seeing a vessel that has spent weeks chugging through the ice-strewn Arctic – through Russian waters now forbidden to the West, no less – finally emerge into the foggy, drizzly fens of the East of England. The logistics seem all the more freighted when situated within the five centuries of Arctic trade, exploration, and colonization that have wended their way out of England and into the north. Now, the tables have turned, and Asia is advancing into Europe via the Arctic.
Since I couldn’t make it to see Istanbul Bridge arrive on Monday night in Felixstowe, instead, yesterday morning, I roused myself out of bed before the crack of dawn to see the ship up close – or at least, as close as I could get while it was still docked.
A few minutes before six, I checked the Port of Felixstowe’s daily departure schedule and saw that Istanbul Bridge was scheduled to leave for Hamburg at 8:30 am (you can see where the ship is now on MarineTraffic). This would give me just enough time to hurry to Harwich, the town facing Felixstowe across the River Stour as it pours into the North Sea. I threw on some clothes, poured some instant coffee into my thermos, grabbed a waffle and a bag of nuts, and rushed out onto the tube to hurry to the train station.
At Stratford, I had two minutes to fetch the direct service to Harwich. While I miraculously found the platform in time, the seamless connection between the tube and the trains meant that I couldn’t figure out how to tap out, let alone purchase a train ticket. I asked a platform attendant if I could still board the train if I just bought my ticket onboard on my phone, but she refused while saying “thank you” with classically British aggressive politeness.
Dejected, I watched the train pull out. Now, the only way to Harwich was if I took three trains. My intercounty journey threatened to become a logistical nightmare involving far more transfers over a mere 84 miles than Istanbul Bridge’s point-to-point intercontinental journey over 7,800 miles. I briefly thought about returning to my bed, which was probably still warm. But this self-imposed ordeal, I reckoned, was all part of being a geographer in both name and practice. So I carried on with my goal of seeing Istanbul Bridge. Fortune may favor the brave, but sometimes, it favors the indefatigable. All three of my trains came on time.
I arrived in Harwich on the nearly empty service from Manningtree a few minutes before Istanbul Bridge was scheduled to depart. Fog thickened by sea spray and bacon grease hung heavy in the air. Quiet streets lined with brick homes led across the river onto Felixstowe’s skeletal cranes, which towered overhead in the white mist. In the town center lay a well-regarded Thai restaurant, a proudly cash-only pub, and a lovingly restored “Electric Palace” that screens films in its cinema a few weeks after their initial release. In and around Felixstowe, things take time to arrive.
I walked out to the waterfront and spotted three container ships. I expected one to have written on its side Istanbul Bridge, but instead, there were two large MSC ships and a smaller one that said Sea Legend. I did a quick Google search and confirmed that this was indeed the ship I was after, for Istanbul Bridge is owned by a Singapore-based Chinese shipping company called Sea Legend (also known as Haijie Shipping). Here was the vessel, then, that had just sailed the new route being called the China-Europe Arctic Express (CAX). Ships plying the line will dock at China at Qingdao, Shanghai, and Ningbo, and in Europe at Felixstowe (UK), Rotterdam (Netherlands), Hamburg (Germany), and Gdansk (Poland).
The ship under the tallest cranes emblazoned with the words “Sea Legend” is Istanbul Bridge.
On Harwich’s empty pier, signs advertised ice cream cornets that had ceased to be hot commodities several months prior. Standing on its well-worn wooden planks, I snapped a few photos of Istanbul Bridge. The rattle and hum of cranes moving heavy containers around the Port of Felixstowe thrummed across the water. A few careening seagulls squawked through the air, frustrated that I hadn’t purchased a bacon bap from the nearby food truck.
Besides the voracious birds and bleary-eyed me, there was no one else in Harwich to appreciate the Arctic arrival. (Based on the photos in their article, Chinese state-owned newspaper Xinhua must have sent their reporter the night before to Felixstowe, which is quite a bit harder to reach from London. There is a foot passenger ferry from Harwich to Felixstowe, but it only operates a few times a day).
Istanbul Bridge passes in front of two much larger container ships on its way out to the North Sea.
In fact, strolling around the shoreline, I felt like I was the curiosity. It could just be a bout of main character syndrome, but here I was, an obvious out-of-towner walking around with a clunky camera. My feeble attempt to blend in with the morning dogwalkers utterly fell apart when I started photographing the ships from the waterfront park. A handyman sitting in his van cheerfully hollered, “Cheese!”
I tried to keep up with the ship as it swiftly steamed towards the North Sea on its way to Hamburg, but my legs were leaden from ultramarathon I had run in the Lake District three days before. Falling behind, I hobbled out to the breakwater and watched as Istanbul Bridge and another vessel, a Stena passenger ferry bound for the Netherlands, turned northeast.
Istanbul Bridge (L) looks much smaller than the passenger ferry (R) that sails between England and the Netherlands.
The local newspaper, too, ignored the reputedly revolutionary voyage. The top story in the Harwich and Manningtree Standard’s transport section yesterday was, “Tilbury Town train station in Essex among Britain’s top 20.” (There was also another article on the return of the annual Harwich Sausage Festival complete with a sausage throwing competition, for which I might just have to return. It’s hard to resist an event described by aptly named individuals such as Colin Cheesman of the “sausage sub-committee.” He remarked to the paper, “The Harwich Sausage Festival has created an atmosphere where the narrow streets of Historic Harwich are full of people strolling from pub to pub talking about real ale and sausages.”). Clearly, the Standard has bigger fish to fry than waxing poetic about some Chinese ship coasting in from the north.
So here across frmo Harwich – the town that built the Mayflower, the legendary ship that carried persecuted Pilgrims to America in 1620 – was a ship that was also trying to be one for the history books. Nobody else in town, though, was batting an eye, despite being in a country that has glorified its polar exploits for centuries.
In the sixteenth century, ships used to sail past this eastern edge of England on their way across the North Sea towards Arkhangelsk, Russia to trade for the London-based Muscovy Company. In the nineteenth century, countless expeditions bolted north to great public fanfare. And in the twentieth century, polar explorers like Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton became national heroes. But that might be why no one much seemed to care about Istanbul Bridge: the accomplishment belonged to China rather than Britain.
All was quiet in Harwich as Istanbul Bridge, visible on the horizon, set out to sea.
The pink graffiti matches the Ocean Network Express (ONE) vessel.
A woman and her dog sit on the beach in Harwich.
After a brief visit to the neighboring town of Darlington, I returned to Harwich along the shoreline and could resist the scent of bacon no longer. I strode up to the quintessentially British food truck I’d spotted earlier in the morning and bought a bacon and egg bap. The neatly dressed elderly fellow grilling my bacon and eggs to perfection kindly offered to top up my torpedo roll with grilled onions, black pepper, and brown sauce. “That’s breakfast for you sorted, then,” he smiled upon handing me my toasty sandwich. Returning to the train station, this time, I really did have to mind the dive-bombing seagulls.
In the Arctic, history is written by the ships. That is why Istanbul Bridge made international headlines. Yet locally, the vessel failed to turn heads. Chinese newspapers herald the development of the Polar Silk Road, but at its terminuses lie communities that do not even realize they are being connected. Here, in Harwich and Darlington, whose high streets have seen better days, time seems to have stopped. Geography is changing, though – only at scales invisible to all but the shipspotters.
