Re Arctic Sovereignty Issues

Race is on to claim the Arctic Circle

Deep inside the Arctic Circle, hundreds of kilometres beyond the frontier of human habitation, a solitary red flag with a white cross flies in the freezing winds, its pole hammered into the unyielding rock of Hans Island. Next to it, a plaque tells the world the Vikings have returned.

The tiny island, a hostile wedge of rock poised between the north-west corner of Greenland and Canada's Ellesmere Island, where winter temperatures plummet to 40C below, is normally home to a seal colony and the occasional polar bear.

Because thinking about writing a novel is much easier than actually writing it, I've spent a lot of time lately wondering about how exactly to put together a story that involves this particular pet obsession. I mean, sure, the Canadian Rangers are charming, with their combination lone ice cowboy/cold Boy Scouts aesthetic, but aside from trekking back and forth, flag in tow, what exactly is there for them to do? (Well, arresting smugglers, in that essentially abandoned story of mine; but beyond that.) What we need are more arctic military units.

These days the Vikings do not come in long ships. The Danish navy sent HDMS Vaedderen, a 3500-tonne frigate with a reinforced hull, into the disputed channel that forms the maritime border between Canada and Greenland, the world's largest island and a semi-independent Danish territory, and more importantly, only 804km south of the North Pole.

And the elite Sirius Patrol, a contingent of specially trained Arctic soldiers, completed a hazardous patrol to the north-east shore of Greenland. The success of the Vaedderen and Sirius missions in proving their ability to operate so far north has given Denmark the confidence to stake its claim to the North Pole.

OK, that will do. The Sirius Patrol! Pynchon couldn't make up a better name. Of course, the elite Sirius Patrol sounds a little downscale these days; fourteen guys defending a huge chunk of the biggest island on the planet. But the Canadians at least believe polar force protection is a must, and I expect other nations with similar interests will come to similar conclusions. I wonder if Danish Polar Explorations HQ has some great James Bondish design elements, at least?

In the lobby of her offices at the Geological Survey of Greenland and Denmark there is a mechanical reminder of what they are working towards. A giant Foucault's pendulum is tracking the rotation of the Earth around its South and North Pole axis.

This begins to write itself, almost. I'd heard that Denmark was eager to lay claim to the Pole itself, but I didn't know Russia had on eye on the same spot.

Beneath the pack ice are the nuclear submarines of Russia, patrolling the dark water. Moscow has made a failed attempt to stake its own claim to the Lomonosov Ridge, and thereby to the North Pole.

. . . . .

The race to claim new territory is, in large part, about regaining long-lost status. "It is all surreal," says Ole Kvaerno, director of the Institute of Strategy and Political Science at the Royal Danish Defence College. "It really strikes me that various nations have begun to make these impossible territorial claims ... What will be the next territorial claim: space?"

Incidently, space enthusiasts are really blue lately.