Eagle Over the Arctic: Americans in the Canadian North, 1867–1985

EAGLEOVERTHEARCTIC: AMERICANSIN THE CANADIANNORTH, 1867-1985 William R. Morrison Critics of the American imperialist impulse of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have pictured the United States as a country expanding greedily in every direction, engulfing a large part of Mexico, and more distant territories from Puerto Rico to Hawaii. Even Canada, America's most inoffensive neighbour, felt the breath of the imperialist whirlwind after Confederation , particularly in the north during the Alaska boundary dispute of 1903. Canadian nationalists of an earlier generation were prone to see this dispute as the act of a bully: Canada, valiantly clinging to its northern heritage, was unfairly robbed of a portion of it by the threats and obstinacy of a powerful neighbour. In fact, Canada's case was weak. 1 Moreover, the Canadian attachment to the country's north was a fickle one. Canadians were alarmed and affronted when the United States seemed to threaten the north, but when the danger passed, they ignored the region. Since Confederation it has been Canadian indifference, not American aggression, which has weakened Canada 's presence in the north, and on occasion even called into question her claims to sovereignty there. When in 1870 and 1880 Canada acquired title to what is now the Yukon and Northwest Territories, the size of the Dominion was increased by 1.5 million square miles. Canada had gained what has proved to be a national treasure. But since its acquisition the Canadian government has treated the north as a national attic-an unimportant superstructure to the country, to be ignored and 62 William R. Morrison relegated beyond the periphery of national development. Canada was roused from its indifference only when the government perceived that Americans were finding opportunities in the north which had seemed invisible to Canadians . When Canada's static conception of the region was challenged by the more dynamic American view, the Canadian government was moved to assert its rights there. At the centre of Canadian-American relations in the north since 1867 has been the question of sovereignty. From the purchase of Alaska in the year of Canadian Confederation to the present, the questions of sovereignty over Canada's north and developmental activity in it have focussed almost exclusively on the United States. To those unfamiliar with the chequered history of northern sovereignty in Canada, it may come as a surprise thatit should be a "question" at all, rather than an issue long since settled to the satisfaction of Canada and other countries. But sovereignty is indeed an unsettled question in Canada, as the 1985 voyage of the American ship Polar Sea through the Northwest Passage has shown. Though the concept of sovereignty in international law is one with many complicated ramifications, it may be usefully simplified for the purposes of understanding the history of Canadian-American relations in the north. The kind of sovereignty which Canada has traditionally exercised in the north may be called "symbolic" sovereignty 2 - that which is concerned with actions which are universally recognized in international law, particularly the formal occupation and legal administration of territory. Such actions as raising a flag and taking possession of territory in the name of a monarch or a government are symbols of sovereignty, as is operating a post office, collecting customs duties, and conducting a census. Because it was based on symbols rather than development, the Canadian concept of sovereignty was essentially a passive one, more image than reality. It arose out of a desire to have formal possession of the north, combined witha lack of ideas as to what to do with it, or a general indifference to it-what J.L. Granatstein has called "a fit of absence of mind.' '3 The traditional attitude of Canadians towards their north may be described as "mappism"-pride in the extent of the country as it appears on the map combined with ignorance of what the north is actually like and a disinclination to do more than daydream aboutit or idealize it. Moreover, what actions Canadians have taken in their north have as a rule not been spontaneous, but have been forced upon them from outside. The attitude of Americans towards their north, and indeed towards the...