Asserting Arctic Sovereignty | Canada and the World

ICEBREAKING

Until the planet started warming up, the notion of sailing through the Northwest Passage on a regular basis had been a non-starter. The ice was too thick for all but the most powerful icebreakers to get through.

Now the ice is thinner, shipbuilders are developing new technologies that will enable cargo vessels to navigate the Arctic waters. Finland is among the leaders in something called DAS (double-acting ships). These vessels have a new propulsion system so they can break ice going backwards and sail through open sea going forwards.

Samsung Heavy Industries in South Korea also has started building double-acting ships. Some are huge, up to 120,000 tonnes, and could be used to carry oil and gas out of the Arctic.

Other DAS carriers could cut down the shipping time and cost of moving goods from Asia to the East Coast of North America and Europe.

There are 36,563 islands in the Arctic Archipelago, including three of the world’s ten largest islands.

Donald Baxter MacMillan was an American veteran of many Arctic explorations in the early 20th century. As he was preparing for an Arctic adventure in 1925, the Governor of Maine, Ralph Brewster, announced that Mr. MacMillan “is authorized insofar as the sovereign state of Maine is concerned to claim in our behalf such land as he shall discover in this region that is still unknown.” When this news reached Ottawa, the government got quite huffy. A press release was issued stating that “Canada will assert its right to any land lying between the Dominion and the North Pole.”

Asserting Arctic Sovereignty

The race is on among five countries to grab as big a chunk of the Arctic as possible; the rewards for the winners could be gigantic,

There’s a Russian flag on the floor of the Arctic Ocean at the North Pole. The flag is made of titanium and sits more than four kilometres below the ice-covered surface. It was put there in August 2007 by Russian sailors in a submersible vehicle and is a symbolic claim to ownership of the seabed at the top of the world.

Hang on. The North Pole? Surely, that’s Canadian, or at least that’s the claim made in Ottawa. Then Foreign Affairs Minister Peter McKay was not impressed by the Russian stunt: “This isn’t the 15th century,” he told CTV News. “You can’t go around the world and just plant flags and say ‘We’re claiming this territory.’ ”

But, the nation’s capital is a long way from the Arctic both geographically and politically. Canadians may sing about “The true north strong and free” but it quickly fades from consciousness once the anthem stops. As historian David Bercuson put it in a Globe and Mail article (August 2007): “Canada has an absolutely woeful record, dating back to the Second World War, of refusing to spend any real money to bolster Canadian claims in the North.”

Oil Companies Active in the North

The Russian flag planting followed closely on moves by Big Oil. Exxon Mobile and Imperial Oil put up more than half a billion dollars in a bid for development rights in the Beaufort Sea. Those two actions are tied together.

University of Calgary professor Rob Huebert is an expert on Arctic sovereignty issues. In October 2007 he told Oilweek magazine: “One of the things that is being increasingly understood about the Arctic is that it’s a treasure trove of natural resources.”

New technology, global warming, and record high prices for resources makes going after these commodities attractive economically. The result is that anybody with a halfway decent case to make is putting dibs on whatever they can. They are doing this because they believe there are question marks around who owns the resources.

Canada’s Arctic Islands Claim Acknowledged

Nobody seriously questions Canada’s sovereignty over the Arctic islands. Baffin, Ellesmere, Devon, Victoria, and all the other islands appear safe from the claims of other nations. Canada’s ownership of the region is based on the voyages of Martin Frobisher, an adventurer and something of a rogue.

Bringing with him the European concept of ownership of land, Frobisher claimed the Arctic for England in 1576. The Inuit, who already lived there, were not asked whether they minded.

In 1880, the British government transferred ownership of its Arctic territories to Canada. This vast area is known as the Arctic Archipelago and is roughly 2,400 km from east to west and about 1,900 km from north to south. Threaded throughout the archipelago are waterways, usually referred to as the Northwest Passage. This is where Canada’s sovereignty gets a bit shaky.

Northwest Passage Sovereignty

Under international law, a country’s sovereignty extends 12 nautical miles (22.2 km) from the coast. The Northwest Passage is more than 24 nautical miles wide throughout its length. So, in theory, there’s always a channel in the middle that is outside Canadian jurisdiction.

Canada counters this by saying the Inuit have for centuries lived on the winter sea ice in these straits, so that occupation gives us ownership. (The 200-mile – 370 km – limit is an exclusive economic zone; it does not mean a country has complete sovereignty within that line).

Ottawa claims the waterways of the Northwest Passage are “inland,” meaning they fall entirely under Canada’s jurisdiction.

Not so, say many other nations who cite that 12-mile rule. The United States and most other maritime powers claim the navigable channels are an “international strait.” That, says Washington, gives them and anybody else with a mind to do so to sail through the Northwest Passage any time they want.

There is a legal definition for an international strait. First, it must connect two major bodies of water. With the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other, the Northwest Passage certainly qualifies. But, an international strait must also be useful for navigation and used.

At present, only about 100 vessels have made the trip through the Northwest Passage. The first to do so was the Norwegian adventurer Roald Amundsen in 1906. The RCMP vessel St. Roch became the first to sail through the passage in both directions in 1944. But, the traffic is going to get heavier.

Some scientists predict a passage will be ice-free in the summer as early as 2015. More conservative estimates are that global warming won’t open the channel until 2050 or later. The value of the Northwest Passage is that it cuts 5,000 kilometres off the trip, via the Panama Canal, from Asia to Europe.

So, if a large number of ships go chugging among the Arctic islands without Canadian permission the legal status of the waterway could change. A lot of international lawyers will be earning large fees arguing just that point.

Sources

“Arctic Sovereignty an ‘Important Issue’: Harper.” CTV News, August 2, 2007.

“Sovereignty Tussles over Arctic Territory Threaten to Impede Oil and Gas Exploration.” Andrea W. Lorenz, Oilweek, October 2007.

According to The Toronto Star, Canada is rare among Arctic countries not to have icebreakers capable of operating year-round in the Far North, such as this Russian vessel. Russia, the U.S., Norway, Denmark, even South Africa, all have them, and South Korea is building one. During the 2006 election campaign, Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party promised to build three polar icebreakers that would carry hundreds of soldiers. But, that plan seems to have vanished once the government looked at the very high cost of building and operating them.