Canada's Cold Front

Abstract

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 ofthe 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 ofthe Alaska boundary dispute from high school history classes. The high point ofthe 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 surely would have stood up to the Americans, regardless ofthe reaction of his British counterpart, Lord Salisbury.Looking at the Alaska boundary dispute through the correspondence of US and British officials over several years of negotiations, the story is different. Both Washington and London grew flustered with Ottawa's strident and uncompromising positions, its fanciful claims unsupported by any other source, and its tendency to play domestic politics with an international dispute. Wearily, diplomats for the United States and the United Kingdom resolved to settle the boundary over Canadian objections, both clearly exasperated with Ottawa.Just over one hundred years later, to many Canadians, the Arctic remains an integral part ofthe national identity. Canadian politicians, from Laurier to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, have continued to invoke Arctic sovereignty in domestic debates as a rallying point for national pride. Meanwhile, countries like the United States and Russia see the Arctic as on the periphery of their interests and influence and approach disputes there with a mixture of legal wrangling and military power projection, much as Britain did a century ago. Realistically, the Arctic is on the periphery of Canadian interests and influence, too, not least because the majority of Canadians never travel north of 60 degrees north latitude. Yet Canadian governments cannot approach boundary disputes in the Arctic with the same sanguine temperament as other powers; today, just as a century ago, the politicization of the Arctic in Canadian domestic politics complicates international efforts to resolve outstanding boundary disputes and exasperates Canada's friends and rivals around the world.ORIGINS OF THE ALASKA BOUNDARY DISPUTEThe limits of the Russian claim to territory in North America were set by the treaty of St. Petersburg, also known as the Anglo- Russian convention of 1825, which Russia was moved to negotiate in response to encroachments from English fur traders representing the Hudson's Bay Company. The treaty between the governments of Tsar Alexander I and King George IV was originally written in French, and set vague limits to Russian America at 141 degrees west longitude for the Alaskan peninsula and a coastal panhandle extending south to 54 degrees 40 minutes north latitude. The Russian government published a map in 1827 that more clearly demarcated a boundary that was accepted by the British government at the time, and which subsequently became the basis for the US understanding ofthe limits of the Alaska territory. Russia offered to sell Alaska to the United States in 1859, and the sale was completed in 1867.Following the confederation of most of the British North American colonies in 1867, the government of the Dominion of Canada sought to establish its claim over former Hudson's Bay Company territories. …