Denmark, Canada in border dispute

Some background from 2004. Apparently, quoting from another website, this island is about the size of a "Home Depot parking lot".

Canadian military plans summer Arctic mission

CTV.ca News Staff
Updated: Sat. Mar. 27 2004 6:10 PM ET

Canada may be pulling back from overseas military commitments, but is planning to "flex its muscles" with an exercise on home soil by sending a warship, a squadron of helicopters and 200 troops to the high Arctic this summer.

News of the operation was reported in Saturday's edition of The National Post.

The military says the three-week long exercise has nothing to do with a brewing territorial dispute with Denmark over the ownership of a tiny island between Ellesesmere Island and Greenland.

The operation, code-mamed Narwhal, is the first time the military will have a joint naval, air and land force operating so far north.

Colonel Norris Pettis, commander of the Canadian Forces northern area, told The National Post that the operation is about "sending a message that this land is important to us...that we can put troops, and aircraft and ships, on the ground to respond to whatever we might be called upon to deal with."

Pettis said the "robust" military presence is a sign that Canada is "flexing our muscles" in the Arctic.

The Danish ambassador to Canada, Svend Roed Nielsen, has offered to negotiate with Canadian diplomats about the fate of Hans Island, a three-kilometre-long stretch of rock and ice in the Nares Strait.

Both countries claim ownership of the barren and uninhabited island.

"As far as Canada-Danish relations are concerned we have tried to keep this low-key [but] we have agreed to disagree," Foreign Affairs spokesman Reynald Doiron told the Post.

A Danish warship sailed past Hans Island in 2002 and a group of soldiers disembarked and reportedly hoisted the Danish flag, an act Canada claimed was a violation of its sovereignty.

Canada has launched a five-year plan to increase its military presence throughout the Arctic, including satellite surveillance and far-reaching patrols of soldiers on snowmobiles.

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The Return of the Vikings

Updated story on Wikipedia

And, of course, more in todays papers ...

Thanks for the photo, Walter. It doesn't look like much, does it? And they're fighting over it!

They're not fighting yet, just bickering.

Let's not mince words here. Before you know it, this little "dispute" over a postage-sized piece of real estate could lead to World War 3.

I wonder if someone could make a tunnel somewhere.....

Not so much bickering either - I heard that each side leaves gifts for the other after their visit. Canada and Denmark - such reasonable nations quarrelling (if I can call it that) in a very reasonable fashion. Other nations please note :wink:

Probably an offer of refugee status....

Denmark asks Canada to reopen territorial talks over disputed Arctic island

at 17:31 on July 27, 2005, EST.
ALEXANDER PANETTA

Canadian Forces Northern Area troops raise a Canadian flag on Hans Island. Nunavut on July 13.
(CP PHOTO/HO/DND/Cpl David McCord)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OTTAWA (CP) - The Danish government has offered to reopen formal negotiations with Canada in an effort to resolve the decades-old tug of war over a tiny Arctic island.

Both countries have avoided the contentious question for three decades but, as global warming opens up the Arctic to shipping and mining, the Danes say the time is now to settle the ownership rights to Hans Island. "We are communicating," said Poul Erik Dam Kristensen, Denmark's ambassador to Ottawa.

"This is just a small irritant that we very much suggest we get aside.

"(We'd do it) by having experts from the two sides sit together and resume the consultations we had back in the '70s."

The dispute has flared up again this summer and made international news on websites from Britain and the U.S., to Asia.

A quick helicopter visit to the barren island by Defence Minister Bill Graham without prior notification to the Danes provoked the latest salvo in the simmering dispute last week. Canadian soldiers also planted a Maple Leaf flag and erected an Inuit stone marker earlier this month.

That prompted the Danish government to call in the Canadian ambassador. The outraged Danes sent a protest letter to Ottawa and a senior official in Copenhagen called Graham's visit "an occupation."

The Canadian government appeared to shrug off the Danish offer of negotiations. A Foreign Affairs official said Ottawa would examine any formal request but was in no hurry to reopen talks.

The Danes say the countries' history of friendly relations should not be subjected to periodic squabbles over a frigid rock barely larger than a football field just south of the North Pole.

"We still believe it is a very minor thing," said Kristensen. "But if it is, in between, popping up like it is well then it's getting time to sit down and try to solve it."

The countries agreed in 1973 to draw a border halfway between Greenland - a semi-autonomous Danish territory - and Canada's Ellesmere Island.

They could not agree on who should claim Hans Island and decided to resolve the issue at some later date.

The dispute crept into cyberspace Wednesday using the popular Google website as the battleground.

A quick search of "hans island" revealed a paid advertisement with the banner headline: "Hans Island is Greenland. Greenland natives have used the island for centuries."

The ad was linked to the Danish government's foreign affairs web page with the letter condemning Graham's visit.

The advertisement was not a Danish government initiative and whoever placed it was acting alone, Kristensen said.

But that didn't stop one Internet expert - and patriotic Canuck - from striking back.

Toronto resident Rick Broadhead placed a Google ad and said the Canadian government needs to get with the times.

With Ottawa prepared to spend billions to boost its military presence in the Arctic over the coming years, he said an Internet campaign is a dirt-cheap way to spread Canada's argument.

"Eight cents per click - or $200 a month - is money well spent to assert our sovereignty in the North," said Broadhead, who has written extensively about the Internet.

"Political battles are not fought solely in the press these days. They're fought on the Internet as well."

Broadhead's website includes a fluttering Maple Leaf flag and outlines Canada's traditional argument that Hans Island belonged to the British and became Canada's in 1867.

The Danes say it is closer to Greenland than Canada and is therefore Danish soil.

The Opposition Conservatives weighed into the debate and said the federal government only has itself to blame if it loses sovereignty over the Arctic.

The Tory defence critic said the military was so depleted over the 1990s that Canada can't sustain a strong northern presence.

"There is speculation the Danes will once again send an ice-breaking frigate to the island. But how is Canada prepared to match this show of muscle?" Gordon O'Connor said in a statement.

"Will it send one of its frigates or aging destroyers, neither of which is capable of effectively operating in arctic climates?

"Canada requires a major military investment to back Canada's sovereignty."

Ottawa has promised to make arctic patrols a priority and has earmarked $13 billion for military investment over five years.

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There will never be a war between Canada and Denmark. Why? This will be the dialogue:

Canada: "Okay then, it's war."
Denmark: "Yes, it's war."

A very long pause.

Canada: "Well?"
Denmark: "Well what?"
Canada: "Aren't you going to start shooting?"
Denmark: "No, we were waiting for you to start."
Canada: "We couldn't possibly go first, no, we insist, afer you."
Denmark: "Oh no, please, you first."

Another very long pause:

Canada: "Hello?"
Denmark: "Yes, here."
Canada: "Have you started shooting yet?"
Denmark: "Did you hear any loud noises?"
Canada: "No."
Denmark: "That would be because we haven't started shooting yet."

Another long pause:

Canada: "Would you like a Moosehead?"
Denmark" "That would be good, would you like a Tuborg?"

Ahhhhhh.....civilised countries

Either that or they'll have to create an official "royal enquiry" on it and study the situation and get all the facts "behind the scene", coming out with a report way down the road.

Someone should snuff out those rumors from Copenhagen!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!





OK, sorry...

Yup, this is so typically Canadian. Let's not offend anyone. Let 'em walk all over us. Whether it's some bloody island, or NAFTA, etc.

Navy on sovereignty patrol in North, but steers clear of disputed Hans Island

at 17:21 on August 9, 2005, EST.
MURRAY BREWSTER

HALIFAX (CP) - The Canadian navy will be showing the flag in the Far North this summer, but nowhere near an island at the centre of an international dispute with Denmark.

Defence critics say the voyage of Halifax-based HMCS Glace Bay and HMCS Shawinigan is a missed opportunity to demonstrate sovereignty and reinforce Canada's claim to Hans Island, a barren, oval-shaped rock that is often dwarfed by neighboring icebergs off northwestern Greenland. The coastal defence vessels will spend the better part of this month in exercises and making port visits in remote parts of Labrador, Nunavut, Quebec and Manitoba, travelling through the Hudson Strait and into Hudson Bay.

The two small warships will be accompanied by Maritime patrol aircraft from Nova Scotia and the Northwest Territories.

The stated objective is "to increase the navy's presence in the North," the military said in a release Tuesday.

But Lieut. Marie Claude Gagne, a spokeswoman for Maritime Forces Atlantic, said the patrol route will not take the force near the tiny windswept atoll claimed by both Canada and Denmark.

Asserting Canadian sovereignty over the 1.3-kilometre island "is not the primary goal of the deployment," she said in an interview.

"The goal is to conduct joint operations."

Aside from training with aircraft, the minesweepers will pick up a contingent of Canadian Rangers, part-time reservists who provide a military presence in remote and coastal communities.

The exercise comes as a small Danish coastal patrol cutter - HDMS Tulugaq - travels to the area in order to plant a flag on the rocky outcrop.

Late last month, Defence Minister Bill Graham asserted Ottawa's claim by setting foot on the itsy-bitsy island, which could have major significance in the years to come.

With the thawing of northern seas and the potential for undersea resources, such as oil and natural gas, Canada's northern boundary with Greenland is taking on new importance.

A defence analyst said the disagreement over the island has ramifications beyond resources.

"If it was our only Arctic issue, I would probably join those who are making fun of this and laughing about this tiny little rock," said Rob Heubert of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies in Calgary.

"Unfortunately it carries a symbolism that far outweighs any economic benefits."

By not mounting regular patrols, Canada is demonstrating that it's not serious about its northern sovereignty.

"If you show you're serious on one issue, I'm afraid others view you as not being serious overall," he said.

At the very least, Heubert said, Ottawa should have mounted a ranger patrol of the island.

Conservative defence critic Gordon O'Connor said the Liberals have been lax for years in enforcing Canada's sovereignty in the Far North.

He pointed out the Danes have regularly visited the island, most recently in 2002.

The current exercise would have been a perfect opportunity to demonstrate Ottawa's resolve, said O'Connor.

"The real challenges of sovereignty are not going to be in Husdon Bay," he said in an interview from Ottawa.

"Beyond Hans Island I think we should be displaying our sovereignty in that archipelago, by whatever means, land, air or sea."

The federal Liberals said recently they intend to resolve the dispute through negotiations - a statement welcomed by Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who was quoted in European media Monday as saying it was "time to stop the flag war."

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I'd've thought they'd've sailed to your neck of the words for this, rey.

That may be a tad more difficult seeing that I'm on the other side of this country....

Northwest Passage and all, luv. It's only not been found because they stopped looking, surely.

priceless...