A Historical and Legal Study of Sovereignty in the Canadian North

Terrestrial Sovereignty, 1870-1939

Gordon W. Smith, P. Whitney Lackenbauer

• Publisher: University of Calgary Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781552387207
• eBook ISBN: 9781552387764
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Gordon W. Smith, PhD, dedicated much of his life to researching Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic. A historian by training, his 1952 dissertation from Columbia University on "The Historical and Legal Background of Canada's Arctic Claims" remains a foundational work on the topic, as does his 1966 chapter "Sovereignty in the North: The Canadian Aspect of an International Problem, " in R. St. J. Macdonald's The Arctic Frontier. This work is the first in a project to edit and publish Smith's unpublished opus - a manuscript on "A Historical and Legal Study of Sovereignty in the Canadian North and Related Law of the Sea Problems." Written over three decades (yet incomplete at the time of his death in 2000), this work may well be the most comprehensive study on the nature and importance of the Canadian North in existence.Volume 1: Terrestrial Sovereignty provides the most comprehensive documentation yet available on the post-Confederation history of Canadian sovereignty in the north. As Arctic sovereignty and security issues return to the forefront of public debate, this invaluable resource provides the foundation upon which we may expand our understanding of Canada's claims from the original transfers of the northern territories in 1870 and 1880 through to the late twentieth century. The book provides a wealth of detail, ranging from administrative formation and delineation of the northern territories through to other activities including government expeditions to northern waters, foreign whaling, the Alaska boundary dispute, northern exploration between 1870 and 1918, the background of Canada's sector claim, the question concerning Danish sovereignty over Greenland and its relation to Canadian interests, the Ellesmere Island affair, the activities of American explorers in the Canadian North, and the Eastern Arctic Patrol. The final chapter examines the Eastern Greenland case and its implications for Canada.

Notes

Editor’s Note

1 Prime Minister’s Office, “Prime Minister Stephen Harper announces new Arctic offshore patrol vessels,” 9 July 2007. http://pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?id=1742.

2 On this theme, see Ron Macnab, “‘Use it or Lose it’ in Arctic Canada: Action Agenda or Election Hype?” Vermont Law Review 34/3 (2009), 3–14.

3 Rob Huebert, “Canada and the Changing International Arctic: At the Crossroads of Cooperation and Conflict,” in Northern Exposure: Peoples, Powers and Prospects for Canada’s North, eds. Frances Abele, Thomas J. Courchene, F. Leslie Seidle, and France St-Hilaire (Ottawa: Institute for Research on Public Policy).

Introduction

1 F. L. Oppenheim, International Law, ed. H. Lauterpacht, 8th ed. (London: Longmans, Green, 1955), vol. 1, 546.

2 A. S. Hershey, The Essentials of International Public Law and Organization, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1935), 285.

3 F.A.F. von der Heydte, “Discovery, Symbolic Annexation and Virtual Effectiveness in International Law,” American Journal of International Law 29, no. 3 (July 1935): 448–71.

4 American Journal of International Law, Supplement, 3, no. 1 (January 1909): 7–25; also British and Foreign State Papers 1884–1885, vol. 76, 4–20.

5 Editor’s Note: This conclusion, which some readers might consider dismissive of Aboriginal rights, is contentious today in light of s. 35 of the Canada Act (1982), which enshrines Aboriginal and treaty rights; comprehensive land claim settlement agreements; and international declarations such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNCRIP).

6 See Helge Ingstad, “Discovery of Vinland,” The Arctic Circular 15, no. 1 (January 1963): 2–6, where the author locates the long-sought Vinland of the Norsemen at the northern tip of Newfoundland. The article also brings out the uncertainties that still persist regarding many aspects of the Norse voyages.

7 H. P. Biggar, ed., The Precursors of Jacques Cartier 1497–1534 (Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1911), 8–10.

8 Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation, 12 vols. (Glasgow: J. MacLehose and Sons , 1903), vol. 7, 282.

9 A. S. Keller, O. J. Lissitzyn, and F. J. Mann, Creation of Rights of Sovereignty Through Symbolic Acts 1400–1800 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1938), esp. 148–51.

10 C.C.A. Gosch, ed., Danish Arctic Expeditions 1605 to 1620 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1897), vol. II, 15, 19, 23, 83.

11 Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, vol. VII, 326.

12 W. Ellis, An Authentic Narrative of a Voyage Performed by Captain Cook and Captain Clerke (London: Robinson et al., 1783), vol. 1, 262–63.

13 Thomas Simpson, Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America … etc. (London: R. Bentley, 1843), 8, 153.

14 Arctic Papers, vol. 2, no. 97 (7 March 1851), 33.

15 Treaties and Conventions Between Great Britain and Foreign Powers, vol. 3, 362–66.

16 C. F. Hall, Life with the Esquimaux (London: S. Low, Son, and Marston, 1864), vol. 2, 111, 118, 119.

17 George Chalmers, ed., A Collection of Treaties Between Great Britain and Other Powers (London, 1790), vol. 1, 340–90.

18 Chalmers, A Collection of Treaties, vol. 1, 467–94 (The Peace of Paris).

19 Statutes of Great Britain, 1–2 Geo. IV, c. 66, 2 July 1821.

20 Chester Martin, “The Royal Charter,” The Beaver, Outfit 276 (June 1945), 26.

21 On whaling in the North American Arctic, see A. P. Low, The Cruise of the Neptune 1903–04 (Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1906), 248–82, which gives a good deal of information about whaling in Hudson Bay and Davis Strait during the nineteenth century and up to 1904. See also B. Lubbock, The Arctic Whalers (Glasgow: Brown, Son, and Ferguson, 1937 and 1955); and for an earlier classic, W. Scoresby, An Account of The Arctic Regions and of the Whale-Fishery, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Constable and Co., 1820). Editor’s note: Smith noted that “Missionary activity in the North, of little importance here, was divided among Moravians on the northern Labrador coast and Anglicans and Roman Catholics elsewhere in the northern mainland; but prior to the 1870s none of these sects had any permanent missions in the archipelago.”

1 | The Transfers of Arctic Territories

1 Gordon W. Smith, “Sovereignty in the North: The Canadian Aspect of an International Problem,” in The Arctic Frontier, ed. R. St. J. Macdonald (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966), 194–255, esp. 198–204. I have tried here to summarize briefly the background of the two transfers and the most vital details about them.

2 See The Beaver, Outfit 276 (June 1945), 26–35, for an accurate reproduction of the original charter, with a foreword by Chester Martin.

3 For detailed accounts of the transfer and its background, see A. S. Morton, A History of the Canadian West to 1870–71 (London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1939), esp. 802–920; E. E. Rich, The History of the Hudson’s Bay Company 1670–1870 (2 vols.; London: Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1958–59), esp. chaps. 30–31; and J. S. Galbraith, The Hudson’s Bay Company as an Imperial Factor 1821–1869 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1957), esp. pt. IV.

4 Statutes of Great Britain, 30–31 Vict., c. 3 (British North America Act, 1867), s. 146.

5 Statutes of Great Britain, 31–32 Vict., c. 105 (Rupert’s Land Act, 31 July 1868).

6 Joint Addresses of 16–17 December 1867, and 29–31 May 1869. ...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Foreword: Gordon W. Smith
• Editor’s Note
• Introduction: Terrestrial Sovereignty before 1870
• The Transfers of Arctic Territories from Great Britain to Canada, 1870–80
• A Period of Relative Inactivity and Unconcern, 1880–95
• Organization and Administration of the NWT, 1895–1918
• Whaling and the Yukon Gold Rush
• The Alaska Boundary Dispute
• Foreign Explorers in the Canadian North, 1877–1917
• Canadian Government Expeditions to Northern Waters, 1897–1918
• The Sector Principle and the Background of Canada’s Sector Claim
• Vilhjalmur Stefansson and His Plans for Northern Enterprise after the First World War
• Danish Sovereignty, Greenland, and the Ellesmere Island Affair of 1919–21
• The Wrangel Island Affair of the Early 1920s
• The Question of Sovereignty over the Sverdrup Islands, 1925–30
• The Eastern Greenland Case and Its Implications for the Canadian North
• American Explorers in the Canadian Arctic and Related Matters, 1918–39
• The Eastern Arctic Patrol, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Other Government Activities, 1922–39
• Epilogue: Henry Larsen, the St. Roch, and the Northwest Passage Voyage of 1940–42
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Additional Readings
• Index