Read the letter written by Denmark’s ambassador to Canada, Poul E.D. Kristensen, and published in The Ottawa Citizen. Gain some insight into why Denmark is interested in Hans Island from this article in the Canadian-American Strategic Review.

Read the U.N. treaty that oultines the border between Greenland and Canada (PDF). Note there is no border over or around Hans Island (66º29’0W, 80º49’2N to 66º26’3W, 80º49’8N).

Dive into the Canadian Archipelago Study, where Canadian and American scientists are measuring the flow of freshwater through the Nares Strait, to monitor and predict climate change.

Find your bearings on a historical Map of the Northern Regions by Joseph Hutchins Colton (ca 1855). Note that the area north and east of Ellesmere Island (where Hans Island is located) had yet to be mapped. For a more complete set of historical maps, check out the Historical Atlas of the Arctic by Derek Hayes (2003), which boasts 300 maps - both realistic and fanciful - from early Arctic expeditions.

Hans Hendrik accompanied American explorer Charles Francis Hall on his final arctic expedition aboard the ill-fated Polaris - an expedition that ended with Hall’s sudden and mysterious death. Ninety-seven years later, Chauncey Loomis headed an expedition to Hall’s grave in northwestern Greenland, exhumed the body and performed an autopsy that revealed mysterious details about Hall’s death. Read all about it in Weird and Tragic Shores: The Story of Charles Francis Hall, Explorer, (Chauncey Loomis, 2000).

Flip through the pages of this rare copy of Hans Hendrik’s autobiography. The full text can be found in Hubert Wenger’s Eskimo Database. Hendrik’s biography also appears in the Canadian Dictionary of Biography online.