Who owns the North Pole?
By Charlie Gillis - Monday, July 25, 2011 - 1 Comment
We used to think it was ours. But Russia has staked a claim, and the Danes will be next.
Janice Lang/NRCan/DFO
The ancient Norsemen believed the mountains and oceans were made from the remains of Ymir—an unlucky “frost ogre” whom the gods slaughtered for the purpose of creating the world. Odin and company were not known for tenderness, but they must have had a sense of humour. The undersea mountain range they left at the top of the planet makes that much clear.
Known as the Lomonosov Ridge, this towering, silt-covered furrow on the ocean floor begins from the nexus of Ellesmere Island and Greenland, then runs some 1,800 km beneath the polar ice cap to an archipelago called the New Siberian Islands. About halfway across, there is a single jag that sticks a couple of hundred kilometres toward the Barents Sea. And there, just below the point of the elbow, under about 4,200 m of frigid water, lies the geographic North Pole.
If they’d had degrees in international boundary law, the creators of the Lomonosov Ridge hardly could have concocted a surer recipe for 21st-century trouble. The Russians laid claim in 2001 to a section of it that includes the pole, and a glance at a relief chart would suggest their claim has merit. By all appearances, the ridge is an extension of the Eurasian continent. Then, last month, leaked documents revealed Danish plans to put dibs on the range based on Greenland’s proximity and apparent geological connections to it. Not to be outdone, Canada is preparing its own claim on territory we’ve long romanticized but historically ignored: this summer, our scientists will take the last in a series of Arctic research voyages intended in part to prove the Lomonosov Ridge is a “natural prolongation” of Ellesmere Island, which it also appears to be. We’re gathering our information with the help of Denmark and the United States—the better to save money and avoid future disputes as to the findings. But make no mistake, we’re in it for ourselves.
The project has amassed an impressive array of data, from the depth of silt across our Arctic shallows to the constitution of the rock going 40 km down. But the geological origins of the Lomonosov Ridge? Well, that’s not so clear. “Russia says it’s a prolongation of their margin, we say it’s a prolongation of ours,” concedes Jacob Verhoef, the federal geologist in charge of Canada’s research mission. “I think the end result is that we both are right.”
That’s a greater level of candour than one hears these days from Moscow, where political leaders speak as though Russia’s Arctic claims require nothing more than the UN’s rubber stamp of approval. But Verhoef’s words are also an acknowledgement that after more than a century of superhuman effort—ill-fated sea voyages, sled-dog expeditions, low-altitude flyovers—we are no closer to answering a question that goes to the heart of any Arctic country’s identity: who, if anyone, owns the North Pole?
We used to think it was ours. Back in 1925, Canada raised eyebrows around the world by declaring as our maritime boundaries the 60th and 141st western meridians, a pie-slice expanse between Alaska and Greenland that converged at, and presumably included the pole. A few months later, the Soviet Presidium passed a law declaring an even larger Arctic domain on its side of the globe, while the recognition of Greenland as Danish territory in 1933 suggested a potential claim for that country between the 60th and 10th western meridians. Both extended in a triangular form toward the pole, as per the so-called “sector principle” countries used at the time to determine polar boundaries.
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The Russians are mocking
By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 27, 2011 at 12:02 PM - 25 Comments
Russia’s Arctic ambassador questions the Harper government’s fears of invasion.
“It could come from lack of knowledge of reality,” Vasiliev told The Canadian Press during a major conference on Canada-Norway-Russia Arctic co-operation at Ottawa’s Carleton University. ”I think that time and reality proves that this is all wrong.”
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Does Harper really care about the Arctic?
By macleans.ca - Friday, May 13, 2011 at 12:56 PM - 0 Comments
Leaked cables reveal PM touted Arctic issues for political gain
New cables released by WikiLeaks reveal the U.S. government perceived Stephen Harper’s position on Arctic sovereignty only as a politically expedient way to win votes during the 2006 and 2008 elections, the CBC reports. While the PM often used strong rhetoric about the need to defend the region and rolled out a series of pledges, including the purchase of armed icebreakers and ocean sensors to beef up surveillance, the cables reveal that he did little to implement them. “The persistent high profile which this government has accorded ‘Northern Issues’ and the Arctic is, however, unprecedented and reflects the PM’s views that the North has never been more important to our country’ — although one could perhaps paraphrase to state ‘the North has never been more important to our Party,” wrote U.S. Ambassador David Jacobson in a January 2010 diplomatic cable. Jacobsen also said that during an extended meeting he had with Harper in January 2010, the PM did not mention the Arctic once. Since coming to power in 2006, Harper has consistently touted Arctic sovereignty as a top priority for the Conservative government, and has visited the region on several occasions.
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'A good working relationship'
By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 13, 2011 at 10:58 AM - 33 Comments
Another leaked cable sheds light on our pitched battle with the Russians for the Arctic.
One cable drafted by U.S. diplomats in Ottawa portrays Mr. Harper as dismissing the need for a military response to Russia over the Arctic. It includes an account from a Canadian official of a January, 2010, meeting between Mr. Harper and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in which the PM said NATO has no role in the Arctic.
“According to PM Harper, Canada has a good working relationship with Russia with respect to the Arctic, and a NATO presence could backfire by exacerbating tensions,” the cable states. “He commented that there is no likelihood of Arctic states going to war, but that some non-Arctic members favoured a NATO role in the Arctic because it would afford them influence in an area where ‘they don’t belong.’ ”
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How bout them jets?
By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 11:55 AM - 115 Comments
The Conservative government has pitched the purchase of 65 new F-35s as a job creation program, as a military recruitment tool, as our best defence against a Russian invasion, as a necessary escort for planes carrying potentially dangerous cargo and as part of staking our claim to the Arctic. But when Mr. Harper was asked this week by Peter Mansbridge to explain why the country needs these 65 state-of-the-art fighter jets, the Prime Minister responded without invoking any of those reasons.
Will we need them? Look, I know this. We’ve heard these arguments before whenever budgets are tight: “Does the military really need them? We don’t need them today.” Did we know we would be in Afghanistan ten years ago, twelve years ago? Did we know we would be in the Balkans? Did we know we were going to have the Gulf Wars? Did we see the end of the Cold War? We don’t know these things, Peter.
What we do know is that the international situation will evolve. We don’t know what the risks and the threats will be in the future, but we know there will be some. And we know the men and women in the Canadian Forces, air, land and sea, will be called upon to respond. And when they are, we want to make sure they have a range of good, flexible equipment so they can respond safely and do their jobs effectively. And if you look at the level of military spending we’re maintaining in this country, if anything we may remain below where most of our allies are.
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An Arctic accident
By Kathleen Winter - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments
Even before we were grounded, I had my life-changing moment, when a man in Gjoa Haven said he had an item that might interest me: the lost logbook of Lord Franklin
REUTERS; PABLO S./ DANNY CATT
To distract my fears when the Clipper Adventurer ran aground on Aug. 27 on an uncharted rock in Nunavut’s Coronation Gulf, I asked on-board geologist Marc St-Onge if he knew what kind of rock it was. As an instructor with the Canadian tour company Adventure Canada, St-Onge had told passengers the history of every rock we had encountered in our expedition through the fabled Northwest Passage. This was a gabbro sill, a submerged version of formations that rose around us onshore. “I think,” he said, “this one will be well charted after this little incident.”
As it turned out, the Coast Guard icebreaker Amundsen, deployed to rescue us from 500 miles west on the Beaufort Sea, was full of geologists mapping the ocean floor to assess the environmental impact of proposed deepwater drilling. They had barely begun when they got our distress call and found themselves drafted to rescue duty. While they shared their couches and chowder with us, they conducted soundings and began mapping the rock that had until now evaded every Arctic chart leading back to Lord Franklin and beyond. Research team member Steve Blasco told Clipper Adventurer passengers, “You’re part of the charting.”
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The arctic: Au nord, peu de nouveau
By Paul Wells - Friday, August 20, 2010 at 8:27 AM - 0 Comments
The Globe’s John Ibbitson does the thing we’ve all had to do, attempting to insert some drama into a report because he has exclusive access to it.
“In a historic shift, Canada will make finding solutions to Arctic boundary disputes this country’s top foreign-policy priority in the Far North, according to a Foreign Affairs paper that will be released on Friday.
“The Conservative government now wants swift and permanent solutions to border issues that this and previous governments had preferred to leave unresolved.”
The point of it all? To “transform the Arctic from a hotbed of jurisdictional conflicts into a stable, rules-based region.” It’s like the opening up of the west all over again. Cartesian rigour and the common sense of the common law combining to tame a lawless frontier.
This is, it must be said, the way everyone is required to talk about the Arctic ever since Harper signed that secret Order-in-Council, “Let’s All Huff and Puff About the Arctic,” in 2006. The problem, as I wrote a year ago, is that across the vast majority of its territory the Arctic is already a stable, rules-based region; that its jurisdictional conflicts are so few in nature and trivial in stakes as to produce only a lukewarm hotbed at best; and that on the only really hard issue, navigation rights through the Northwest Passage (which is the only point of dispute in that waterway; Canada’s control of lands and resources is uncontested) we’d probably lose any legal dispute. Continue…
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'We would like to express our deepest sorrow'
By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 11:08 AM - 0 Comments
The government’s apology, delivered by Indian Affairs Minister John Duncan, to Inuit who were forcibly relocated in the 1950s.
On behalf of the Government of Canada and all Canadians, we would like to offer a full and sincere apology to Inuit for the relocation of families from Inukjuak and Pond Inlet to Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay during the 1950s.
We would like to express our deepest sorrow for the extreme hardship and suffering caused by the relocation. The families were separated from their home communities and extended families by more than a thousand kilometres. They were not provided with adequate shelter and supplies. They were not properly informed of how far away and how different from Inukjuak their new homes would be, and they were not aware that they would be separated into two communities once they arrived in the High Arctic. Moreover, the Government failed to act on its promise to return anyone that did not wish to stay in the High Arctic to their old homes.
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Hot on Sir John Franklin’s tail
By Philippe Gohier - Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 5:43 PM - 0 Comments
157 years later, Canadian archaeologists uncover the ship sent to find the fabled explorer
Parks Canada researchers came upon one of the most fabled shipwrecks in marine archaeology this week in Canada’s Arctic. The HMS Investigator sank in the frigid waters of Mercy Bay 157 years ago after it was abandoned by its crew when it became locked in ice during a search for a legendary expedition headed up by Sir John Franklin.Environment Minister Jim Prentice was among the first people to get a close-up view of the wreck of the HMS Investigator just a few days after it was found by the Parks Canada team.
“We were able to position our Zodiac immediately above the Investigator to peer down in the icy Arctic water, which is crystal-clear,” Prentice said in an interview from Mercy Bay. “It sits perfectly upright in 11 metres of water. When you look down on it, you’re able to see in exquisite detail all the decking and the ship’s timbers and so on. It’s an incredible thing to see.”
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That'll teach them
By Paul Wells - Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 8:43 AM - 15 Comments
U.S. nuclear sub surfaces near the North Pole; Canadian foreign minister promises to get tough on “countries like Russia” that snub our Arctic “sovereignty.” Why, it’s… it’s almost as though this whole Arctic “sovereignty” strategy were an ineffective charade. Who could have foreseen this? Who?
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'It doesn't seem important. It is.'
By Aaron Wherry - Monday, September 14, 2009 at 12:40 PM - 44 Comments
The prepared text of Michael Ignatieff’s speech to the Canadian Club this afternoon.
I’m here today to talk to you about Canada’s place in the world—how we’ve lost it and how we can get it back.
The world is changing, and Canada has to change with it. Our identity as a people will be defined by the place we find in the world that is taking shape on the other side of this global recession.
Canada was born inside two Empires, the French, the British, and we have matured beside the most powerful nation in history, the United States.
What happens to our identity, our place in the world, when the centre of gravity shifts to Asia? When India and China become the powerhouses of the global economy?
We should have nothing to fear from the rise of these new powers. A new world creates new opportunities for Canada. Opportunities to trade, to learn, and to create the global architecture of security for this emerging new world. But only if we have leadership that seizes these opportunities.
Ce que nous faisons à l’étranger contribue à nous définir. C’est le reflet de notre personnalité. C’est le reflet de ce que nous pouvons apporter au monde pour qu’il soit meilleur. C’est le prolongement de ce que nous sommes comme peuple.
By and large, Canadian politicians scarcely utter a word about Canada in the world on the hustings. It doesn’t seem important. It is.
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It happens to the best of us
By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 at 1:43 PM - 10 Comments
David Akin, National Post, August 18. But the day wasn’t without a snag. A release from the PMO spelled the Nunavut capital as Iqualuit — rather than the proper Iqaluit. The extra ‘u’ makes an Inuktitut word that translates roughly, according to media reports, to “people with unwiped bums.” The typo was later corrected.
Rudyard Griffiths, National Post, September 8. Having recently returned from two weeks on Baffin Island I am struck by the profound disconnect between this summer’s Arctic chest-thumping by our professional political class and the realities of life in the far North. For starters you can’t visit a town such as Iqualuit (population 7,000) and not question the sustainability of large-scale human settlement along the Arctic Circle.
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He doesn't believe any taxes are good taxes
By Aaron Wherry - Monday, August 24, 2009 at 12:11 PM - 34 Comments
Except maybe for those taxes that pay for cool stuff like this. (Video courtesy of David Akin.)
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So what was that all about?
By Aaron Wherry - Monday, August 24, 2009 at 1:44 AM - 57 Comments
The Nunatsiaq News calls it “the most expensive photo op you’ll ever see.”
Torch blogger Mark Collins laments the “jingoistic nonsense” of it all.
And then there is what our own Andrew Coyne wrote. A year ago.
In fact, Canada’s Arctic sovereignty is getting along just fine, thank you. For all the emphasis the Conservatives have placed on it — “use it or lose it,” in Harper’s famous formulation — and for all the reams of hyperventilating, the-Russians-are-coming reportage it has received in the media, no one is actually threatening to invade Canada’s frozen North. Neither is there much dispute over Canada’s territorial waters — the ribbon of sea along our coast, 200 nautical miles wide, that international law acknowledges as ours. Even the much bolder claim we have lately advanced to the waters beyond the 200-mile limit, reaching as far as the North Pole, is for the most part uncontested…
It can’t hurt our case, and may help, if we bolster our physical presence in the North. Certainly we should hope that the Arctic spoils are divided by something resembling a legal process, rather than by military force or international free-for-all. And there are good reasons — environmental, security — why it would be in everybody’s interest for Canada to continue to police the passage. But on its merits, the question of Arctic sovereignty would not seem to warrant anything like the attention it has received from this government.
It does, however, serve an important political objective — namely, as part of the Conservatives’ efforts to rebrand themselves as the Canada Party, or perhaps to redefine Canada itself: to devise an alternative language and symbology of patriotism to the one so successfully exploited over the years by the Liberals.
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Mission accomplished
By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, August 20, 2009 at 1:00 PM - 66 Comments
Alison Crawford reflects on the exquisite precision of a Stephen Harper photo op.
The Coast Guard’s Pierre Radisson ship and the submarine HMCS Cornerbrook lined up one one side of the frigate HMCS Toronto. On the deck of Toronto, was a gaggle of reporters, cameras at the ready.
Then, Defence Minister Peter MacKay sauntered onto the deck with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. They stopped to make idle chit chat until urged by handlers to move forward a few metres in order to have them perfectly positioned with the other two vessels in the background.
But wait! There’s more! Three CF-18 jets flew past in formation. But the fly-by was a little to fast for some camera operators and photographers to catch the entire montage of sub, jets and coast guard, so the CF-18s passed over four more times.
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Stephen Harper takes brave stand against vegetarianism
By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, August 20, 2009 at 11:14 AM - 46 Comments
Having sampled seal, the Prime Minister will now eat only that. And is forcing his eating habits on others.
Harper arrived in Iqaluit, Nunavut on Monday night with a planeload of the cabinet ministers that sit on cabinet’s Priorities and Planning Committee. P&P held a meeting in Iqaluit Tuesday. At lunch, at Harper’s request, cabinet was served a menu of boiled and raw seal livers and ribs.
On Wednesday, as he bantered with reporters aboard the HMCS Toronto while sailing on Frobisher Bay, Harper noted that even Transport Minister John Baird, a vegetarian, tried some seal meat at lunch. ”I’m tired of John’s vegetaranism,” Harper joked.
But lunch on Tuesday did not, apparently, quench Harper’s appetite for seal. For dinner Wednesday, Harper requested seal steaks and encouraged his staff to try a bit. We have been told that journalists travelling with the prime minister this week — I’m one of them — will see seal in some form or another on the menu Thursday.
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Tickle Trunk diplomacy
By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 2:30 PM - 49 Comments
As our forefathers foretold, the North shall be controlled by he who stages the manliest of photo opportunities.
So shall it be Mr. Putin without his top?
Or Captain Harper preparing for takeoff?
(More of the Prime Minister on Arctic parade is available here.)
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Wimps?
By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 18, 2009 at 5:22 PM - 5 Comments
More from David Akin.
Just in: PM & cabinet eating seal ribs and liver, both raw and boiled. First time PM has eaten seal. Sadly – no photos!
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Wimps
By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 18, 2009 at 11:52 AM - 2 Comments
David Akin reports on lunch from the Prime Minister’s Arctic adventure.
On seals — When cabinet breaks for lunch today — seal is on the menu — fresh, too – caught yesterday. Won’t be raw. More later …
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The revolution will eventually end up on YouTube
By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 18, 2009 at 2:16 AM - 18 Comments
This footage is apparently a couple months old, but it is indeed Michael Ignatieff standing up in public and saying things about stuff—specifically arctic sovereignty, agriculture, Conservative attack ads, Afghanistan, nuclear energy, firearms and pharmacare.
Do try to contain yourselves.
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To our Arctic-bound prime minister: Bon voyage, but …
By kadyomalley - Sunday, August 2, 2009 at 9:36 PM - 31 Comments
… before you head off to points north, you might want to read — or at least have your speech-and-talking-points writers read — this report on Canadian public opinion on Arctic sovereignty, which was put together by Environics Research for National Defence earlier this year.
Among the findings:
- “Canadians, and Northerners in particular, are broadly aware of the topics of sovereignty and security in Canada’s Arctic region,” they are “less inclined than in the past to express concern about Canada’s Arctic sovereignty”
- In both the provinces and the territories, Canadians “identify the environment/climate change as the leading top-of-mind issue facing the North” — in fact, the “relative salience of other issues, including Arctic sovereignty, resource and mineral rights, and unemployment, trails well behind”
- According to Environics, the majority also believe that the federal government “should not give sovereignty priority over other issues, such as health care or the environment.”
As for strengthening Canada’s control over the Arctic, it would seem that there is more support for sending in the cartographers than the cavalry:
Northerners believe the most effective way for Canada to strengthen its control over Arctic territory is to conduct more research and mapping of Arctic geography and resources, while Southerners consider this and negotiations with other countries that have Arctic claims to be equally effective. By comparison, increasing Canada’s military presence in the North and increasing the number of people in the North are considered – by residents of both regions – to be less effective approaches to strengthening Canadian sovereignty.
ITQ, for her part, was particularly intrigued by the response to a DND/Canadian Forces media backgrounder on Arctic sovereignty, which gives us a pretty good idea of what a lot of Canadians are going to want to hear – and, perhaps more importantly from a political perspective, what they don’t want to hear — from the prime minister during his upcoming trip:
- “Canadians, and Northerners in particular, are broadly aware of the topics of sovereignty and security in Canada’s Arctic region,” they are “less inclined than in the past to express concern about Canada’s Arctic sovereignty”
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One way to fill blogspace on a pre-long weekend Friday – Liveblogging a PMO background briefing
By kadyomalley - Friday, July 31, 2009 at 2:15 PM - 44 Comments
The Scene:
With just moments to go before the briefing gets underway, there are seventeen media representatives clustered around the table, including ITQ. So far, three of them have expressed amazement and surprise that this room — 112-N — exists, which boggles ITQ’s mind. Have they never covered Procedure and House Affairs?! Wait, don’t answer that.
This now looks like the ultimate revenge fantasy for the press gallery — a committee comprised entirely of journalists, and A Senior Government Official in the witness chair.
The dress code, incidentally, is what you would call “hypercasual”, with the exception of the representative from the National Post, who is otherwise garbed in traditional Friday-before-the-long-weekend gear, but with vibrantly pink socks and loafers. It’s kind of hypnotic, actually.
1:04:40 PM
And we’re off! (What? Apparently I just like recording life in liveblog format.)
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'Hook, line and sinker'
By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, February 28, 2009 at 3:01 PM - 9 Comments
David Pugliese counters yesterday’s “news.”
The Russians have been doing such sorties for the last year and a half. In August 2007 Russian President Putin announced to the world that such sorties would begin again. “Starting in 1992, the Russian Federation unilaterally suspended strategic aviation flights to remote areas,” Putin said at the time. “Regrettably, other nations haven’t followed our example. That has created certain problems for Russia’s security.”
Yesterday’s incident prompted some amusement at NDHQ about how gullible some in the news media can be and how easily some journalists swallowed the government’s bait hook, line and sinker.
However, that laughter was somewhat tempered by mid-afternoon when TV newscasts started linking the Arctic sovereignty issue and the Russian sortie. NDHQ types started getting worried that journalists would later start asking about what was happening with the Arctic training base, the Arctic patrol ships and the new icebreaker that were promised by the Harper government. The answer to what’s happening with those projects is “very little,” said one DND insider.
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Masterpiece theatre
By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 1:03 AM - 0 Comments
Speaking of Larry Cannon, there’s breaking news on the foreign policy front. Seems there’s no reason for you to lose any more sleep over our claim to arctic sovereignty.
On Monday, in one of his last acts as U.S. president, George W. Bush released a 10-page Arctic policy spelling out American priorities. Bush said his country’s presence in the North should grow. He repeated American claims that the Northwest Passage is an international waterway and emphasized the need for his country to have access to the region’s untapped energy resources.
Last November, the European Union released its own discussion paper in which it said that rules for shipping, fishing and drilling in the North should be established by international agencies, not just the states with Arctic coastlines.
But on Tuesday Cannon said Canada’s claims to the Arctic continue to be widely recognized internationally…
The Conservatives have promised civilian projects such as a state-of-the-art icebreaker and a commercial harbour in the Nunavut community of Pangnirtung. Those developments – as well as the military spending – have yet to materialize.
Cannon said Canada’s plans and positions are clear enough to its partners without having to produce a policy paper. ”I don’t think it’s a question of releasing documents,” said Cannon. ”The prime minister has stated clearly our intentions in the Arctic. We want to be able to make the Arctic our masterpiece in foreign policy.”
But that’s good enough for some people. Namely, Northwest Territories Premier Floyd Roland. Continue…
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Dion gets off a good one
By John Geddes - Friday, September 12, 2008 at 7:44 PM - 41 Comments
Dion delivered his best joke of the campaign at University of Victoria this afternoon….
Dion delivered his best joke of the campaign at University of Victoria this afternoon. (OK, there aren’t a lot of other contenders.) Asked about his policy for Arctic sovereignty, he criticized the Tories for emphasizing a military presence too much. That won’t work, Dion said, because, “We can’t win against the Americans, we can’t win against the Russians, and we’re too civilized to shoot the Danes.”
