Some International Aspects of Arctic Canada

Abstract

There has recently been a remarkable upsurge of interest in northern Canada on the part of both commercial corporations and the general public. It seems likely that this represents a genuine shift of emphasis in national policies toward the higher latitudes, bringing with it the possibility that the region is at long last to become a part of the everyday world. In other words, the era of exploration is ending. Now, discovery is being replaced by consolidation, and commercial exploitation of one of the world's last frontier areas is about to begin. With this there will come a certain measure of occupation and settlement. This is true not only of northern Canada, but also of Alaska, Greenland, and the northern ussr. The Canadian Institute of International Affairs, together with the Arctic Institute of North America, anticipated just such a process when it sponsored publication of a volume of essays, The Arctic Frontier, in 1966.1 The objective was to focus the opinion of policy-makers on the Canadian north as a region which has its own international implications through relations with the circumpolar lands, and where priorities should be somewhat different from those of southern Canada. The volume dealt, among other matters, with welfare of the native peoples, the intelligent use of natural resources, aspects of sovereignty and international law in the Arctic, defence, scientific research, and relations with other northern lands. Since the volume appeared, Arctic Canada has emerged as an area of special international concern, and there is now an urgent need for students of foreign affairs to recognize it as such, and to initiate research relating to it. For Canada is a three-ocean nation today; the country's foreign policy-makers can no longer pretend that the Arctic Ocean does not exist.