Abstract
In discussion of current issues, the relevance of history is too often ignored or disregarded as insignificant. Yet in the case of Arctic governance in North America, there are sufficient similarities to previous challenges to warrant closer examination. A cursory glance reveals a number of circumstances which precipitated changes in ownership or authority, such as an abrupt change in climate; wars and economic adversity; technological advances and increased demand for Arctic resources. In varying degrees, all are present today. History also reveals that the greatest threat to Arctic sovereignty was loss of control over the adjacent waters and major sea routes.1 Equally significant are differences in demography, cultural traditions, local economies, and political institutions which become self-evident when comparing the histories of Alaska, Arctic Canada, and Greenland. Admittedly, there are obvious similarities in climate, geography, marine life, flora, and fauna, but human factors are critical to understanding the need for tolerance and compromise in devising policies acceptable to all regions. Although cooperation among the Arctic countries has been enhanced by success of the Arctic Council, increasing competition for the region’s resources could become a divisive factor if accompanied by a threat to authority over adjacent waters.
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Notes
S. D. Grant (2010) Polar Imperative: The History of Arctic Sovereignty in North America (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre), p. 404. Although most historical data in this paper is found in this publication, other references are added to provide more details.
B. J. Theutenberg (1984) ‘Mare Clausum et Mare Liberum’, Arctic, 37:4, 481–3.
Grant, Polar Imperative, pp. 11–14; for more detailed information, see M. Byers (2013) International Law and the Arctic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press);
and D. R. Rothwell (1996) The Polar Regions and the Development of International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Grant, Polar Imperative, pp. 15–17; T. Berger (1991) A Long and Terrible Shadow: White Values, Native Rights in the Americas, 1492–1992 (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre), pp. 1–15.
Grant, Polar Imperative, pp. 30–40; see also R. McGhee (2005) The Last Imaginary Place: A Human History of the Arctic (Toronto: Key Porter);
and P. Schlederman (1996) Crossroads to Greenland: 3000 Years of Prehistory in the Eastern Arctic (Calgary: Arctic Institute of North America).
Grant, Polar Imperative, pp. 40–51. For more details about the Norse settlements, see F. Gadd (1970) The History of Greenland, vol. 1 (London: C. Hurst and Company);
K. Seaver (1996) The Frozen Echo: Greenland and the Exploration of North America, 1000–1500 AD (Stanford: Stanford University Press);
G. Sigurdsson (2000) Vikings in the New World (Reykjavik: Culture House);
and a somewhat controversial interpretation by J. Diamond (2005) Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (Toronto: Penguin Books), pp. 211–77.
Grant, Polar Imperative, pp. 81–6, 148–52, and 181; see also L. Bobé (1953) Hans Egede: Colonizer and Missionary of Greenland (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger);
F. Gadd (1970) History of Greenland, vol. 1–2.
S. Haycox (2006) Alaska: An American Colony (Seattle: University of Washington Press), pp. 177–87.
Grant, Polar Imperative, pp. 86–91 and 118–23; P. A. Tikhamenev (1978) A History of the Russian-American Company (Seattle: University of Washington Press).
Grant, Polar Imperative, pp. 97–114. Aside from the published journals by British Admiralty officers, see Captain F. E. McClintock (reprint 2012) The Voyage of the ‘Fox’ in the Arctic Seas, 3rd edn (Vancouver: Touchwood Books);
F. Fleming (1998) Barrow’s Boys: The Original Extreme British Exploration Adventurers (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press);
and Glyn Williams (2009) Arctic Labyrinth: The Quest for the Northwest Passage (Toronto: Viking Canada).
Grant, Polar Imperative, pp. 162–3 and 168–72; for details on American explorations, see M. F. Robinson (2006) The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
S. R. Bown (2012) The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre).
Grant, Polar Imperative, pp. 115–33; see also G. G. Van Deusen (1967) William Henry Seward (New York: Oxford University Press), and for American expansionism,
T. R. Hietala (2003) Manifest Design: American Exceptionalism and Empire, revised edn (New York: Cornell University Press);
and W. LeFeber (1998) The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansionism, 1860– 1898, revised edn (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).
Grant, Polar Imperative, pp. 178–179, and 344; also John Bockstoce (1986), Whales, Ice, and Men: The History of Whaling in the Western Arctic, (Seattle: University of Washington Press) pp. 256–89.
Grant, Polar Imperative, pp. 200–7; Library and Archives Canada, RG 15, vol. 1, file ‘Arctic Islands’, contains a copy of W. F. King (1905) Report upon the Title of Canada to the Islands to the North of Mainland Canada (Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau).
M. Saint-Pierre (2008) Joseph-Elzéar Bernier 1852–1934, translation by W. Barr, (Montreal: Baraka Books).
S. D. Grant (1989) ‘Myths of the North in the Canadian Ethos’, The Northern Review, 3:4, 15–41;
also S. D. Grant (1998) ‘Arctic Wilderness — and Other Mythologies’, Journal of Canadian Studies, 33:2, 27–42.
For more details about the murder trials, objectives and consequences, see S. D. Grant (2002) Arctic Justice: the First Murder Trial in the Eastern Arctic, Pond Inlet, 1923 (Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press).
Grant, Polar Imperative, pp. 227–35; for details on the Byrd expedition, see N. Fogelson (1992) Arctic Exploration and International Relations, 1920–1932 (Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press).
As confirmed in S. W. Boggs (1933) The Polar Regions: Geographical and Historical Data for Consideration in a Study of Claims to Sovereignty in the Arctic and Antarctic Regions, 1990 edition (Buffalo, NY: William S. Hein & Company), pp. 46–7. Boggs was an official in the geographical division of the State Department.
Grant, Polar Imperative, pp. 249–51; R. Vaughan (1991) Northwest Greenland: A History (Orono: University of Maine Press);
S. Grant (1999) ‘Why the St. Roch? Why the Northwest Passage? New Answers to Old Questions’, Arctic, 46:1, pp. 82–7. For history of US forces in Greenland,
see S. Conn, R. Engelman and B. Fairchild (2000) United States in World War I, Volume II: Guarding the United States and Its Outposts (Washington: Government Printing Office for the Center of Military History), ch. 17.
Autobiographical accounts add further details: Col. B. Balchen, Maj. C. Ford and Maj. O. La Farge (1944) War Below Zero: The Battle for Greenland (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company);
or W. S. Carlson (1967) Lifelines Through the Arctic (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce).
S. D. Grant (1989) Sovereignty or Security? Government Policy in the Canadian North, 1939–1950 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press), pp. 70–102; the reference to the ‘army of occupation’ is found in ‘Notes on Developments in North-West Canada’, 6 April 1943, by British High Commissioner Malcolm MacDonald, in Library and Archives Canada, W. L. M. King Papers, MG26 J4, vol. 309, file 3283.
Grant, Sovereignty or Security, pp. 103–28. For a more recent publication, see K. S. Coates et al. (2009) Arctic Front: Defending Canada in the Far North (Toronto: Thomas Allen Publishers).
For an American perspective supported by impeccable research, see J. T. Jockel (1987) No Boundaries Upstairs: Canada, the United States, and the Origins of North American Air Defense (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press);
and Jockel (1991) Security to the North: Canada-U.S. Defense Relations in the 1990s (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press).
Grant, Polar Imperative, pp. 319–32; also S. D. Grant (1990) ‘A Case of Compounded Error: The Inuit Resettlement Project 1953 and the Government Response 1990’, Northern Perspectives, 19:1, pp. 3–29;
and F. Tester and P. Kulchyski (1994) Tammarniit (Mistakes): Inuit Relocation in the Eastern Arctic, 1939–1963 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press).
Inuit Circumpolar Conference (1992) Principles and Elements of a Comprehensive Arctic Policy (Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press);
see also M. M. Simon (1996) Inuit: One Future — One Arcti (Peterborough: Cidar Press);
A. Lynge (1996) Inuit: The Story of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (Nuuk, Greenland: Atuakkiorfik).
Grant, Polar Imperative, pp. 391–4; J. English (2013) Ice and Water: Politics, Peoples and the Arctic Council (Toronto: Penguin Canada/Allan Lane).
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Grant, S.D. (2016). Arctic Governance and the Relevance of History. In: Berry, D.A., Bowles, N., Jones, H. (eds) Governing the North American Arctic. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137493910_2
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