The Battle For Hans Island Moving to the Skies:

The Hans Island dispute (“Crisis in the Arctic“) obtained worldwide notoriety when it was learned that the territorial fight was being played out in cyberspace (Google keywords to be specific). It then took an ugly turn as Denmark dispatched the naval cutter Tulugaq and Canada flew in a politician. With the stakes only getting higher, each country was forced to figure out how to reinforce its territorial claims without starting a war. But things continue to escalate and the Canadian Defence Department has been put on alert.

Canada would love to dispatch a couple of frigates to the area to match Denmark’s naval presence. However an embarrassing lack of suitable ice-breaking capability in its navy is limiting its options. So Canada is taking to the battle to the skies. The Canadian Space Agency is buying $400-million worth of Arctic imagery from Richmond, B.C.-based MacDonald Dettwiler Associates, which owns the soon-to-be-launched Radarsat 2 polar orbiter. In defending the unusual move,  Canadian authorities were quick to point out that the federal investment is less than the cost of a new icebreaker and the satellite can see in all weather, day or night, 365 days a year.

So if things continue along this path, very soon Denmark will have a boat circling the little island and Canada will have pictures of it. In a word, “volatile!”

Diplomacy:

Thankfully both nations have agreed to discuss the issue at the United Nations next month. Despite the UN’s horrible track recor in solving territorial disputes, the UN is aided in this particular case because unlike Palestine, Korea, or Crete, no one lives on nor particularly cares about Hans Island.

In other news, the Hans Island Liberation Front continues its message board and these blogs have recently posted about this rapidly evolving saga:

Mikelander pipes in with a comparison to Anne Murray (wins Independent Sources award for most painful metaphor).

 VLTAVA FRAZER ATHABASCA COLUMBIA COLORADO TORYSA HNILEC reports the satellite story and are listed here because they have a cool blog name–at least we think it is a cool blog name, we really don’t know what it means. (If you do, let us know.)

Cherniak on Politics wondered out loud if a “telephone” shouldn’t be employed in the dispute as well. (By the way, somewhat unrelated, Independent Sources wants to put Cherniak on notice that we plan to steal his line “I wish I were eloquent enough to express how truly pitiful this is.” We really like it).

Random Existence has a satellite image that they claim shows Pat Robertson off of the coast of Hans Island. (Note: we have not verified the claim and are only providing the link to the raw satellite image. If this is true Random existence wins the Independent Sources award for excellence in reporting, if it is not true then we put them on notice to leave the satirical writing to us!).

Blog Critics sends its thoughts and prayers to the Canadian sailors who are out facing the Danish enemy so far from home and in such a forbidding place. (In other words, forget Baghdad, it’s Hans Island that best defines Hell.)

Martin Stable wisely reminds us that “Polar Epsilon has no connection to the U.S. ballistic missile defence program.” (Martin gets the Independent Sources award for level-headed reporting else the Danes mistakenly think they are about to receive a first-strike nuke up their shorts).

Mr. Denmark’s Hans Island Page has the entire time line written from the Danish perspective. (He gets the Independent Sources “Let’s all be calm folks, this guy has a GUN!” award. Refer to his photo at the bottom of his blog page if you are wondering what we mean).

Angry in the White North shares our opinion on the involvement of the UN. (Angry gets the Independent Sources “Cutting to the Chase” award for their comment “doesn’t everything the UN touch turn to crap?” )

Read all Independent Sources Hans Islands postings. Independent Sources is your #1 Source of Hans Island information.

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technorati: hans island canada

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 1st, 2005 at 9:52 am by Insider and is filed under Hans Island. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.