If you thought the Manifest Destiny era of colonization was over, think again. The now former President George W. Bush, during his last days in office, declared Canada’s claims of sovereignty over Arctic waters to be moot.
“Freedom of the seas is a great priority,” stated a White House directive issued January 9, only 11 days before his successor, Barack Obama, took office. It’s right up there with the U.S. tradition of gunboat diplomacy a century ago, but it’s all about the modern drive for control over exploitable oil and natural gas fields.
On this issue, at least, we should give Stephen Harper some credit. During his first news conference as prime minister in 2006, Harper actually stood up to the increasingly bellicose rumblings from Washington over Canadian claims to Northern waters.
“The United States defends its sovereignty and the Canadian people will defend our sovereignty,” said Harper, rather unambiguously. In April that year, Canada’s Joint Task Force North declared that the Canadian military would no longer refer to the region as the Northwest Passage, but as the Canadian Internal Waters, to make matters even clearer.
Thanks to global warming, however, the fabled passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific that so many explorers tried to find is now becoming a reality. Soon ships won’t need an icebreaker to make it through the Northwest Channel for at least one month a year.
Shorter trips between Europe and Asia will knock 7,000 kilometres off the Panama Canal route. Time, fuel and fees will be the savings for many transport companies.
More alarming though, is the fact that the melting ice will offer access to Alaskan and Canadian Arctic oil and gas fields. These potential profits are almost certainly the real reason why the US under a Bush administration was so gung-ho about disputing Canada’s claim to the Arctic. It could also have been a ticking time bomb tossed at the new Obama administration by the departing Republicans.
This story isn’t a new one. In 1969, the United States deliberately refrained from asking for Canadian permission to enter the passage with an icebreaker, the USS Manhattan. Their point was to exercise the position that the route is through international waters and does not require so much as a courtesy call.
However, the Inuit stood up to this American invasion. Two Inuit hunters near Resolute Bay took their dogsled out on the ice and blocked the Manhattan, forcing it to stop.
One hopes that Barack Obama will take a less aggressive approach to American foreign policy, but where energy policy is concerned, hopes can fly out the window. At any rate, administrations are temporary and the Republicans will be back in office some day, meaning that this issue is sure to come back on the table.
And that means development. In these remote waters and harsh environment accidents will happen. Any Northerner knows that what works on paper in the South doesn’t always meet the challenges of the Arctic environment. Especially when there is profit to be made, many will adopt a can-do attitude. This can do the job just fine… until it doesn’t.
When it doesn’t we will have oil spills in one of the most fragile environments in the world. We will have shipping or cruise ships straining rescue resources and the list goes on.
As they proved in 1969, however, the Inuit will not be shy about making their point. And, in this, whoever occupies the land – or the ice – is the surest guarantee of sovereignty.
