Is Alaska nearing the day when large oil tankers will sail by its Arctic shoreline, carrying Canadian tar sands oil to foreign markets? The provincial government of Alberta is toying with the idea, sinking money into a study to find out if an Arctic shipping plan makes more sense than moving its oil through the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to the Lower 48, or pipelines west or east through Canada.

Shortly after wildcatters struck it big at Prudhoe Bay, Humble Oil, the predecessor to Exxon Corp., tested an Arctic shipping route in 1969. Dubbed the Manhattan project, as the vessel was named the Manhattan, the mission was in part to see whether transporting crude in tanker vessels from Alaska's Arctic oil fields was feasible, rather than building the 800-mile trans-Alaska pipeline to ship the oil to the ice-free port of Valdez.

The test run proved it wasn't possible to do so year-round, but 44 years later climate change is transforming the Far North, with new shipping lanes opening up and Arctic dreamers betting on a boom.