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November/December 2005 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Feature: James Bay In-depth: The price of power The Inside Story Editor’s Notebook Reverberations Explorer À la carte Mosaic

Sovereignty and war
What to make of Defence Minister Bill Graham’s surprise visit on July 20 to Hans Island, a treeless, two-square-kilometre nub of rock in Nares Strait between Greenland and Canada’s northernmost Arctic possession, Ellesmere Island? The visit provoked Denmark, which administers Greenland’s foreign affairs, to issue a formal protest and threaten to send in a naval vessel to assert its sovereignty over the uninhabited island.

Both countries have declared ownership of Hans but have done little to press their claims to it since 1973, the year they settled on a border that runs down the middle of Nares Strait. Hans Island was the sticking point. Accordingly, the border stops at the island’s northern shore and resumes at its southern coast. Possessing it will not, therefore, entitle its owner to any additional offshore resources. Both sides agreed to disagree about its ownership and to give the other prior notification of any intention to visit.

Then, out of the blue, Canadian soldiers flew in by helicopter on July 13 to erect a Canadian flag. They were followed a week later by Graham, who arrived from Canadian Forces Station Alert, at the top of Ellesmere Island, to plant both feet in the middle of the disputed territory.

No one lives on Hans Island and no one is likely ever to do so. Inuit abandoned Ellesmere itself between 1650 and 1850 and didn’t return until a group of families from northern Quebec was relocated by the federal government to the south coast in 1953. The hamlet they established, Grise Fiord, is still there and is the only Inuit community on what is the world’s tenth largest island.

So if Hans Island isn’t part of historic, Canadian Inuit territory and if its ownership isn’t accompanied by rights to seabed resources, what prompted Graham’s summer adventure?

Virtually everyone who has commented on this dispute has argued that Graham’s action was part of the federal government’s new commitment to strengthening Canada’s claim to sovereignty over all its Arctic islands and waters. Global warming is threatening to open greater parts of the Far North to shipping and development. By poking the Danes with a sharp stick, Graham was apparently sending a message to the world that Canada is prepared to defend its ownership to every last ice-choked island, passage and narrows within or on its borders.

We plan to report in future issues on the federal government’s renewed interest in the North. In the meantime, we have assembled a primer on Hans Island on our website that includes photos, maps, a timeline Ottawa to consider it an essential stop. It is a magnificent building whose exhibitions tell a sobering story of Canada’s long history of violent conflict before and after the arrival of the first Europeans.

Continuing on the theme of war and remembrance, we welcome writer Joseph Boyden to our pages. He’s the author of Three Day Road, a highly acclaimed novel about two Oji-Cree snipers who fought in the First World War. For this issue, Boyden visited the Canadian memorial at Vimy Ridge, the site of the decisive 1917 battle that Canadian troops fought against the well-entrenched German army. His column picks up on a theme that also resonates throughout the museum: the wounds of war do eventually heal.

— Rick Boychuk

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