Further to Dan's update on Hans Island, here's a report that suggests
that at least some Canadians are keeping the dispute in perspective....

m a r t i n 


FINALLY, A WAR CANADA COULD WIN

Jack Knox, Victoria Times Colonist 03/08/05

The problem with going nose to nose with Greenland is the Inuit think
it's foreplay. Which is why we're going to fight Denmark instead,
dropping the gloves in a border war. 

This will come as a shock to those who were unaware we even share a
border with Denmark, which we don't, really. Our actual neighbour is the
aforementioned, quasi-independent Greenland -- the Danish Factory Outlet
Store, as it were, way out on the edge of town beside Ellesmere Island
and Costco. Greenland, Denmark, whatever -- bring it on, we're going to
war. 

What we're incensed about, apparently, is Hans Island. It sits in the
narrow channel that separates Greenland from Canada. Both countries
claim it, like the last beer in the fridge. 

We are puzzled: why would Greenland want Hans Island? It's not so much
an island as an outsized rock, with neither people nor trees (though it
may have a Starbucks). 

But then, what do Canadians actually know about Greenland, anyway? We
spend all of our time fussing about our rambunctious, party-hardy
neighbours to the south, only to suddenly discover the real threat is
from the quiet guy upstairs, the one we never think about. Probably has
a body in the freezer. 

Certainly Canada and Greenland have clashed in the past, first over
their Inuit hunting our musk oxen on Ellesmere Island, then over Arctic
sovereignty, and then, most recently, over the ownership of Hans Island.

Musk oxen? Sovereignty? Hans Island? What's next, our womenfolk? Are we
to simply turn jelly-kneed and abandon defenceless (OK, unpopulated)
Hans Island to the ineluctable onslaught of voracious, insatiable
Greenlandic imperialism? 

Let's take them now, I say. Get the Greenlanders before they get us.
Wage war and conquer the bastards if they don't drop this outlandish
claim on Hans Island. Sixty-four forty or fight. 

Only one problem: We're the ones who started this scrap. After allowing
the diplomatic dispute to simmer away for 30 years, it seems Canada
suddenly chucked gas on the fire last month when our defence minister,
Bill Graham, landed on Hans Island in a helicopter, kind of provocative
like, as though he was trying to start something. (I think I saw him put
his hand on Greenland's girlfriend's butt, too.) The obvious question
is: Why? 

Why would reasonable, peaceful, sober Canada go picking a fight with
Greenland? The obvious answer is: We could win. Damn it, the rest of the
world gets to go to war, getting drunk and kicking hell out of each
other, while goodie-two-shoes Canada, the designated driver, picks up
the pieces. No more. Forget the blue beret. For once, we want a black
leather jacket. 

OK, it wouldn't be a classic clash -- more like that pee-your-pants
funny Wayne Gretzky-Neal Broten purse-swinging fight of 1982 -- but we
could still take Greenland. It may be twice the size of B.C., but it
only has half the population of Saanich. 

We'll take on the Danes, too, if necessary. Their win-loss record ain't
great. Know how long it took Germany to roll over Denmark in the Second
World War? Less than a day. You can't get your cable hooked up that
fast. "We were captured by telegram," is how one Danish politician put
it. 

Better be careful, though. Denmark might be tougher than it looks, one
of those deceptively small, wiry types like Vietnam. One moment you're
shoving him in the chest and next thing you know he's kicking your butt
all over the bar while the girls in the UN laugh at you. 

Still, it would prepare us for the big rematch with Uncle Sam. In 1859,
in one of the great "hold my beer and watch this" moments in history, we
went at it with the U.S. in a border dispute known as the Pig War.
Ultimately, we sobered up and jammed out, losing San Juan Island in the
process. That one still grates. 
Which brings us to the unresolved tug-of-war over Dixon Entrance,
between the Queen Charlotte Islands and Alaska. If Canada is willing to
get physical with Greenland over Hans Island, it should do the same with
the U.S., right? 

Besides, I think we could win.