Polar Imperative : a History of Arctic Sovereignty in North America

462 Pages·2011·7.22 MB·English

by  Grant

POLAR IMPERATIVE
POLAR
A HISTORY of ARCTIC
SOVEREIGNTY in NORTH AMERICA
IMPERATIVE
SHELAGH D. GRANT
D & M I
OUGLAS C NTYRE
D&M PUBLISHERS INC.
Vancouver/Toronto/Berkeley
Copyright © 2010 by Shelagh Grant
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in
any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The
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Douglas & McIntyre
An imprint of D&M Publishers Inc.
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Vancouver BC Canada V5T 4S7
www.douglas-mcintyre.com
Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada
(cloth)
ISBN 978-1-55365-418-6
(ebook)
ISBN 978-1-55365-618-0
Editing by Jean Wilson
Jacket photograph Bergy Bits under Cloudy Sky © Corbis
Distributed in the U.S. by Publishers Group West
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia
Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit and the
Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.
For Jon,
my children and grandchildren
CONTENTS
MAPS
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PART I: SETTING THE STAGE
1 Defining the Parameters
2 First Inhabitants, 3000 BC–1500 AD
3 Merchants and Monarchs, 1500–1814
PART II: THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
4 The British Admiralty and the Arctic, 1818–53
5 Purchase of Alaska, 1818–67
6 Sale of Rupert’s Land, 1870
7 British Transfer of the Arctic Islands, 1870–1900
PART III: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
8 Perfecting Sovereign Titles, 1900–38
9 World War II, 1939–45
10 Postwar and Cold War, 1946–91
11 Arctic Oil and Aboriginal Rights, 1960–2004
PART IV: THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
12 Beginning of a New Era
13 Conflicts and Challenges
NOTES
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
MAPS
Circumpolar View of the Arctic, C 2009
Alaska, 2009
The Canadian Arctic, 2009
Greenland, 2009
Migration Routes of the Palaeo-Eskimos, 3000 BC–1000 AD
Migration Routes of the Thule Inuit, 1000–1500 AD
Viking Explorations and Settlements in North America, C1000 AD
Russian Settlements in Alaska, C1800
Canada in 1870 after Purchase of Hudson’s Bay Company Lands
Sverdrup’s Explorations in the Arctic Islands, 1898–1902
Canadian Presence in the Arctic, C1933
Arctic Weather Stations, Ferry Routes and Airfields in World War II
Defence Activities in the Arctic during the Cold War
Limits of Jurisdiction in Canadian Arctic Waters, C1986
Shrinking Arctic Sea Ice and Potential New Shipping Routes
Inuit and Eskimo Self-Government in North America, C2009
Disputed Claims in the Circumpolar Arctic, C2009
PREFACE AND
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I
NSPIRATION COMES unexpectedly and often in the strangest places. I
always knew I would write this book but never quite understood why, until a
visit in the summer of 2006 to the abandoned RCMP detachment at Dundas
Harbour not far from the eastern entrance to the Northwest Passage.
Jon and I, along with our fourteen-year-old grandson, had just debarked from
a Zodiac and climbed up a rocky incline. It was warm and sunny, the skies a
vibrant azure blue and not an animal to be seen. When we reached the top of the
hill, the sight before us was breathtaking: three tiny boxes set slightly apart on a
vast landscape of green tundra, pebble beach and glistening waters that stretched
endlessly to the horizon. Behind lay towering cliffs and nestled on the side, a
white picket fence that I knew enclosed the graves of two police officers. The
compelling beauty of the scene slowly gave way to one of incomprehension.
How could three young men assisted by two Greenlandic Inuit families possibly
protect Canadian sovereignty in this remote and barren land, which had never
been occupied by Inuit and rarely, if ever, been visited by hunting parties? Even
the whalers had long departed. With a small wooden skiff and rifles used for
hunting, how could they do anything of greater significance than raising a flag
on Beechey Island? Was it just symbolic? Perhaps a deterrent?
The Canadian plan to maintain sovereignty in the High Arctic was predicated
on the legal requirement to show “effective occupation.” But why and to what
purpose were they carrying out such “administrative tasks” as operating a post
office, taking a census and making regular reports on wildlife resources and
routine sled patrols? The Greenlanders had supplied the dog teams and sleds.
And we all know that the young policemen could not have survived without
them. Was it some sort of “paper sovereignty” designed to fulfill the legal
requirements?
Admittedly, more southerly detachments like Pond Inlet, Pangnirtung and
Lake Harbour served nearby Inuit camps. But unlike the Danes in Greenland, the
Canadian government made no attempt to provide them with an education or
medical services, at least until they were shamed into doing so thirty-odd years
later following reports by American airmen who served in the Canadian Arctic
during World War II. Why was the United States and Danish treatment of their
Inuit so different?
The rationale behind the establishment of the High Arctic police posts
continued to haunt me. Was it simply a matter of national pride? Perhaps
inspired by another country wanting the land? Or was it just the least costly
means to maintain sovereignty—like cats marking their territory? These were
hard questions and the answers lay in British, Canadian, American and Danish
history.
Global warming has once again brought the Arctic and related sovereignty
questions to the forefront of public attention. Yet there is something unsettling in
the current discourse that at times resembles a hodgepodge of facts and opinions,
akin to pieces of a patchwork quilt waiting to be incorporated into the finished
product. It was time to put the pieces together, fill in the gaps and provide the
context to complete the story. I now knew why I was writing the book and it was
time to think “outside the box.”
For the most part, major Canadian studies on Arctic sovereignty have tended
to focus on legal interpretations and potential challenges, but with only a cursory
review of circumpolar history. Polar Imperative takes a much different
approach, initially by narrowing the parameters of the study to exclude the
Subarctic, then adopting a comparative platform to broaden the scope by
encompassing all of the North American Arctic, including Alaska and
Greenland, and finally by extending back over thousands of years to identify
circumstances and events that influenced changes in occupation or authority.
Where pertinent, the inquiry touches on parallel situations in the European and
Russian Arctic to establish a global context for changes taking place. This book
also explores the “human dimension” to show how the vision and commitment
of various individuals had a major impact on government actions. Only through
understanding the history of all three Arctic countries can we fully comprehend