Canada's Cold Front

Date01 March 2010
DOI10.1177/002070201006500113
AuthorChristopher Sands
Published date01 March 2010
Subject MatterThe Lessons of History
| International Journal | Winter 2009-10 | 209 |
Christopher Sands is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, based in Washington, DC.
Christopher Sands
Canada’s cold front
Lessons of the Alaska boundary dispute for Arctic boundaries today
Where does the sovereignty of one country end and another’s begin in the
remote north, where few people settle and even great powers struggle to
establish their control? This question perplexed Russia, Britain, the United
States, and Canada for nearly a century as they disputed the boundary
between Alaska and Canada. Today, the same question echoes over the high
Arctic as competing claims over the Beaufort Sea, Hans Island, the waters of
the Northwest Passage, and other parts of the region are advanced by Russia,
Norway, Denmark, Canada, and the United States—with Japan and China
increasingly active in exploration activity as well.
Many Canadians have a vague idea of the Alaska boundary dispute from
high school history classes. The high point of the popular Canadian narrative
is that the United States, particularly under President Theodore Roosevelt’s
leadership, acted like a bully to get its way, and in the end Britain sold out
Canadian interests to keep the peace with Washington. If only Canada had
been able to determine its own foreign policy in 1903, Sir Wilfrid Laurier
THE LESSONS OF HISTORY

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