According to the Globe and Mail, a decades-long border dispute between Canada and Denmark reportedly ended with the partition of Hans Island, a tiny uninhabited rocky plateau emerging from the Nares Strait and measuring just 1.3 square kilometers. Sources confirmed to the Globe that the disputed island – known to the Inuit people of the area as Tartupaluk – will be the site of Canada’s second land border. The report claims that a settlement will be unveiled on June 14, ending a low-intensity border dispute that has been raging since the early 1970s. Those who can hike to the small island will have the rare opportunity to do a dance like Homer Simpson between Nunavut and Greenland, although you will probably not get there easily. The nearest residential area in Canada is Alert, 198 miles away, the northernmost continuously inhabited part of the world and home to just a few dozen residents. If you come from Greenland, the closest inhabited place is Qaanaaq, 379 km away, with a relatively large population of over 650 inhabitants. Probably not the kind of places where you can expect to take a domestic flight, nor that Hans Island even has a runway for landing. And you probably should not expect to see any border checkpoints there either, as the island has no roads, ports or other means of tourist traffic. The interest in the island was primarily the focus of research teams and missions seeking to claim sovereignty of their homeland, a kind of low-key colonial tug-of-war between a nation of Europe and the New World for the land that has always been . This playful non-conflict involves soldiers from both countries leaving bottles of spirits as evidence of their land claims, Canadians leaving Canadian Club bottles behind and Danes planting snap bottles. He is an easy candidate for the most noble military confrontation in the history books. And like any colonial conflict, it will end with a fantastic line on a map through a place that does not rightfully belong to either party. As far as it’s worth, the Globe reports that Nunavut’s Inuit legal representative for inherent treaty rights and treaty negotiation welcomed the resolution. With Arctic ice melting due to climate change and shipping lanes opening up, governments are paying more attention than ever to the north, but Hans Island is not the only tiny island the Canadian government has been embroiled in a territorial dispute. The Canadian government is claiming another small island in the Gulf of Maine. The only problem is that the United States is also claiming sovereignty over the island of Machias Seal, despite its Canadian-built and staffed lighthouse.
