Credit: CanadianGeographic.ca
A new proposal to split Hans Island – a 1.3 square-kilometre rock that rests between Canada’s Ellesmere Island and Greenland — is being put forward by negotiators from both countries.
The plan, which aims to divide the island through the middle, would give Canada a second foreign land border and settle an ongoing spat between the two nations.
The latest proposal by bi-national negotiators is to connect the 1.2-kilometre gap in the existing maritime boundary across the landmass. The border currently stops at the low-water mark on the island’s south side and starts again from the low-water mark on the north side – a mapping decision made in 1973 that left the competing claims unresolved. Experts say that connecting the dots would divide Hans Island almost precisely in half.
However, it is not yet certain if Ottawa and Copenhagen will approve the settlement plan and, if they do, when it might be unveiled.
“The political complexities of making an announcement are, in many ways, much more complicated than settling the actual territorial dispute,” Whitney Lackenbauer, associate professor of history at St. Jerome’s University, told the National Post. “Both governments publicly staked their sovereignty claims. The early messaging of ‘standing up for Canada’ puts our government in a difficult position.”
The ownership rights of Hans Island has always been an issue of consternation, however, the dispute was only brought to public attention in 2004 when the National Post highlighted the island as one of four major boundary disputes in Canada. News that Danish warships and naval personnel were visiting the island also caused alarm at the time.
According to the Post, Bill Graham, then Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, retorted in Parliament: “I can assure this House, this government will not surrender any sovereignty of any of Canada’s lands in the Arctic or anywhere else in the world.”
In 2005, an agreement to negotiate a settlement was signed by Ottawa and Copenhagen and lawyers from the two foreign ministries have been working on it since.
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SÃle Cleary is a regular contributor to Toronto Standard. Follow her on Twitter at @silecleary.
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