In 2023, Arctic populations will be able to see "flying whales"! The Quebec government has taken a stake of 30 million Canadian dollars (21 million euros) in the capital of the French company Flying Whales ("Whales flying") which counts the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology among its partners and manufactures airships.
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Quebec hopes to create a hundred jobs with the establishment of a factory on its soil. The project is still only in research and development but it is ambitious. Airships will have to transport up to 60 tonnes of goods to remote locations in the far north, where there are sometimes no roads or other means of travel than snowmobiles or dog sleds.
Strong distrust
If the objective is to open up Inuit communities, the balloons will also be responsible for bringing equipment to the many mines in the north of the province. The Minister of the Economy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, defended in the Quebec Parliament this project “of transporting heavy loads at lower cost” , which “will favor the development and the economic development of regions ” hitherto neglected. Pierre Fitzgibbon also touted " a low-polluting option compared to other modes of transporting heavy loads ". However, the project arouses strong suspicion. More than 80 years after the explosion of the Hindenburg airship near New York, and despite a radical change in technology, the specter of the zeppelin still hangs.
