The MV Arctic is an icebreaking

Icebreaker

An icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters. Although the term usually refers to ice-breaking ships, it may also refer to smaller vessels .For a ship to be considered an icebreaker, it requires three traits most...

 cargo ship built in 1978 at the Port Weller Dry Docks in St. Catharines, Ontario

St. Catharines, Ontario

St. Catharines is the largest city in Canada's Niagara Region and the sixth largest urban area in Ontario, Canada, with 97.11 square kilometres of land...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. The ship is owned and operated by the Fednav Group

Fednav Group

Fednav Group is a group of seven Canadian companies in the Ship transport industry. Primarily involved in transporting bulk cargo and break bulk cargo worldwide, the group is also involved in vessel servicing and cargo handling....

.

Designed to carry both oil and ore

Ore

An ore is a type of rock that contains minerals with important elements including metals. The ores are extracted through mining; these are then refined to extract the valuable element....

, the vessel is not only ice strengthened with a Finnish-Swedish ice class

Finnish-Swedish ice class

The Finnish-Swedish ice class is an ice class assigned to a vessel operating in first-year ice in the Baltic Sea and calling Finnish or Swedish ports...

 1A Super, but has a CASPPR Class 3 or CAC 4 rating. This means it is powerful enough to navigate through many ice-covered waters unescorted. The Arctic previously serviced mine

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

s in the high Canadian Arctic such as Polaris

Polaris mine

Polaris zinc mine was an underground zinc mine on Little Cornwallis Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut . The Polaris mine was located north of the Arctic Circle, and north of the community of Resolute...

 and Nanisivik

Nanisivik, Nunavut

Nanisivik was a company town which was built in 1975 to support the lead-zinc mining and mineral processing operations for the Nanisivik Mine, in production between 1976 and 2002...

. Once those mines closed she was shifted to service the Raglan mine in northern Quebec and the Voisey's Bay

Voisey's Bay

Voisey's Bay is a bay of the Atlantic Ocean in Labrador, Canada. The bay is located south of the community of Nain. The bay is heavily indented with numerous inlets and islands and is extremely rocky and is the site of the Voisey's Bay Mine....

 mine in Labrador

Labrador

Labrador is the distinct, northerly region of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It comprises the mainland portion of the province, separated from the island of Newfoundland by the Strait of Belle Isle...

.

The Arctic was extensively rebuilt by Port Weller Dry Dock during winter 1985–1986. The ship received a new icebreaker bow which improved its icebreaking capability and the ice strengthening in the sides and bottom was increased so that the ice class could be upgraded from CAC 2 to CAC 4.