Canada and Denmark in tug of War over arctic island
A friend of mine who has been travelling extensively in Canada on business mentioned this Hans Island conflict, and because there has been absolutely NO coverage in the U.S. I started thinking that he was pulling my leg.
A quick search engine inquiry, and viola! Interesting stuff going on north of the border! -RonL Hans Island the tip of iceberg in Arctic claims
Hans Island the tip of iceberg in Arctic claims
CTV.ca News Staff
Defence Minister Bill Graham set off a diplomatic row with Denmark when he re-stated claim to tiny Hans Island in the far north last weekend, but what's really at stake is Canadian sovereignty over more important sites in the Arctic.
"Hans Island itself is a small and economically insignificant piece of rock," Rob Heubert, an Arctic expert with Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, said on CTV's Question Period.
Heubert believes Graham's move was a bold and necessary response to a series of provocations made earlier by the Danes.
"If we're not firm with Hans Islands, which by the way is the only sovereignty issue that concerns land, we're going to be setting up a terrible precedent for remaining issues that are very significant for Canadian Arctic sovereignty."
The United States is challenging Canadian sovereignty in six other areas of the Arctic, including the Northwest Passage.
If sea ice continues to thin due to climate change, the Northwest Passage will eventually open up as a major shipping route. More and more, the U.S. and other countries believe that the Arctic waters are international waters -- as is the case in the Antarctic.
Retired Colonel Pierre Leblanc, a former commander of the Northern Area, says Canada may have already lost its claim to the Arctic waters, due reports over the past 30 years of unidentified submarines being spotted in the area.
"There are quite a number of submarine sightings, some by very credible sources such as RCMP officers," Leblanc said.
The fact that Canada hasn't had the resources to conduct surveillance in the area, and track down these submarines, diminishes the Ottawa's claim to sovereignty.
Graham, also appearing on Question Period, told CTV's Craig Oliver that Canada should be in place to patrol the waters, as the Northwest Passage opens up.
Graham said Canada hasn't had a continuous presence in the Arctic because the times didn't require it, but that's all about to change. "These are new times and there will be new measures," Graham said.
"We have new satellites that we're putting in place to patrol the Arctic, and we will be looking at the use of unmanned aerial vehicles. And we're looking at the way in which we can extend a radar protection which we have off the east and the west coast, to put it at the either end of the Northwest Passage so that we could control and ascertain what traffic is taking place there," Graham said.
"So as time goes on ... just as new technology is enabled other people to use submarines, new technology is enabling us to take better measures to patrol our Arctic."
View article and map of disputed island online;
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1122832179594_34/?hub=Canada
Canadian military plans summer Arctic mission
CTV.ca News Staff
Canada may be pulling back from overseas military commitments, but is planning to "flex its muscles" with an exercise on home soil by sending a warship, a squadron of helicopters and 200 troops to the high Arctic this summer.
News of the operation was reported in Saturday's edition of The National Post.
The military says the three-week long exercise has nothing to do with a brewing territorial dispute with Denmark over the ownership of a tiny island between Ellesesmere Island and Greenland.
The operation, code-mamed Narwhal, is the first time the military will have a joint naval, air and land force operating so far north.
Colonel Norris Pettis, commander of the Canadian Forces northern area, told The National Post that the operation is about "sending a message that this land is important to us...that we can put troops, and aircraft and ships, on the ground to respond to whatever we might be called upon to deal with."
Pettis said the "robust" military presence is a sign that Canada is "flexing our muscles" in the Arctic.
The Danish ambassador to Canada, Svend Roed Nielsen, has offered to negotiate with Canadian diplomats about the fate of Hans Island, a three-kilometre-long stretch of rock and ice in the Nares Strait.
Both countries claim ownership of the barren and uninhabited island.
"As far as Canada-Danish relations are concerned we have tried to keep this low-key [but] we have agreed to disagree," Foreign Affairs spokesman Reynald Doiron told the Post.
A Danish warship sailed past Hans Island in 2002 and a group of soldiers disembarked and reportedly hoisted the Danish flag, an act Canada claimed was a violation of its sovereignty.
Canada has launched a five-year plan to increase its military presence throughout the Arctic, including satellite surveillance and far-reaching patrols of soldiers on snowmobiles.
Denmark calls for talks on Arctic island dispute
CTV.ca News Staff
Denmark's government held out on olive branch over a barren Arctic island, suggesting talks with Canada to resolve the decades-old territorial tug of war.
A Foreign Affairs official said Ottawa would examine any formal request but was in no hurry to reopen talks.
The Danes had called it "an occupation", when Canada's Defence Minister Bill Graham visited the uninhabited, 1.3-square-kilometre Hans Island last week.
Both countries claim sovereignty over the barren rock, which lies between Canada's Ellesmere Island and Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory.
Graham declared it "part of Canadian territory," sparking an immediate protest from the Danish government. And on Tuesday, a key government official in Greenland reacted angrily to Graham's comments.
"When someone unfairly tries to exercise their influence on the island, which is claimed by both Greenland/Denmark and Canada, I can't interpret the action as anything but occupation," Josef Motzfeldt, deputy leader of Greenland's home rule government, was quoted as saying on a Danish website.
Reports in the Danish press say the country expects to send a ship to the area next month.
Graham continues to portray his visit as innocent because he happened to be in the area. He's been touring Arctic posts, including Iqaluit, Pond Inlet and Alert, as part of the government's new emphasis on northern sovereignty.
Graham says Ottawa will talk to Denmark about his visit, but emphasized that Hans Island is part of Canada.
"We'll talk to the Danish people about their position, but our position has always been clear: It's Canada, and I went there just as I would have gone anywhere else in the Arctic," he said.
A statement from the Danish foreign ministry said Graham's visit, made without prior notice to Denmark, was "noted with regret."
Denmark sent navy ships to the island in 2002, and the following year hoisted a Danish flag there.
Canada has become increasingly assertive about its sovereign claim to the Arctic because of global warming's potential impact on mining and shipping.
More than 360 Canadian Forces sailors and soldiers participated in a northern sovereignty exercise last summer.
Canada's primary military presence in the Arctic is the Rangers -- the more than 4,000 aboriginals who use traditional survival skills, snowmobiles and vintage rifles to patrol all the way to the magnetic North Pole.
The two countries drew a border in 1973 halfway between Ellesmere Island and Greenland. They agreed that sovereignty over Hans Island and other Arctic islands would be determined later.
Denmark's claim is based on their argument that the island is closer to Greenland than to Ellesmere.
Canada says the Arctic islands were discovered by the British, whose rights Canada inherited following Confederation.
Canada, Denmark clash in Google ads
Associated Press
TORONTO — Canada and Denmark have taken their diplomatic tussle over a lump of Arctic rocks to the Internet with competing Google ads claiming sovereignty over Hans Island.
Some Canadians have called for a boycott of Danish pastries the way Americans disdained french fries when Paris declined to join the coalition forces in Iraq.
The diplomatic debate began Monday when Denmark said it would send a letter of protest over a visit to the 1/2-square-mile Hans Island last week by Canadian Defense Minister Bill Graham.
Graham stated Canada has always owned the uninhabited chunk of land, 680 miles south of the North Pole.
Denmark responded: "Hans Island is our island."
Toronto resident Rick Broadhead googled the matter and found an ad that touted Hans Island as Danish. "Does Hans sound Canadian? Danish name, Danish island."
Internet users clicking on the ad were directed to the Danish Foreign Ministry's Web site.
So Broadhead paid for his own Google ad and created a Web site to promote Ottawa's sovereignty. His Google ad leads users to a fluttering Maple Leaf flag and plays the national anthem.
Broadhead's Web site outlines Canada's argument that Hans Island belonged to the British and became Canada's in 1867. The Danes say it is closer to Greenland than Canada and is therefore Danish soil.
In 1984, Tom Hoeyem, who was Denmark's minister for Greenland affairs, caused a stir when he raised a Danish flag on the island, buried a bottle of brandy at the base of the flag pole and left a note saying: "Welcome to the Danish island."
Danish note to the Canadian Ambassador on Hans Island:
In a conversation today with Canada's ambassador to Denmark, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted with regret that the Canadian Minister of National Defence had paid a visit to Hans Island without prior notification of the Danish Government. At the meeting the head of the Danish Foreign Ministry's Legal Service handed over a note to the Canadian ambassador reiterating the Danish Government's regret.
Denmark as well as Canada claim sovereignty over Hans Island which is situated approximately half way between Greenland and Ellesmere Island
posted by RonL at 12:33 AM
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