Waging An 80-Proof War

THE OVERLOOK

By Tom Clavin

“The Overlook” appears every Wednesday at tomclavin.substack.com. If you enjoy the column, please "like" it and let me know what you think by commenting. (Check out previous ones while you're at it.)  Likes, comments, and shares help with author discoverability on Substack.com, and all support is appreciated. And don't forget to hit the ‘Subscribe’ button – it’s free!

          With so much attention being paid to the war between Ukraine and Russia, another war involving big-name countries has been overlooked – the one between Canada and Denmark. There is good news on this front: The war is over, thanks to the two rivals arriving at a peace agreement last month.

          The so-called “Whiskey War” ended when the two adversaries agreed to split ownership of Hans Island, a mound of rock measuring 1.2 kilometers that sits halfway between Nunavut and Greenland. The new border will divide the island roughly in half, following a natural ravine from north to south.

“We’re setting a precedent. We’re showing to other countries how territorial disputes can be solved,” Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly of Canada said after a signing ceremony in Ottawa, according to Maura Forrest in Politico. “It is possible to settle a disagreement, and it’s always the best way to do it through principles and norms that both parties recognize.”

          In length of time, this war exceeded the vaunted Hundred Years War. The conflict between Canada and Denmark began in 1880 when Hans Island got lost in the shuffle of the British transferring remaining arctic territories to Canada. Due to the use of outdated 16th-century maps, the small island was not explicitly included in the transfer, and as such wasn’t even recognized until decades later.

In 1933, Greenland was declared the rightful owner of Hans Island by the ironically named Permanent Court of International Justice. This organization was dissolved within a few years of this decision and effectively replaced with the United Nations. The ownership resolution was deemed no longer valid, so Hans was once again up for grabs. Both World War II and the Cold War took precedence over more trivial conversations, and even after a maritime border negotiation in the early 1970s, Hans Island – known as Tartupaluk in Inuktitut -- still sat simmering on the back burner.

In 1973, Canada and Denmark established a border through the Nares Strait between Ellesmere Island and Greenland but failed to reach an agreement about the uninhabited outcrop. “Hostilities” began in 1984, when Canadian troops invaded the island. The carnage that ensued involved leaving behind a Canadian flag on a pole, a sign that read “Welcome to Canada,” and a bottle of Canadian Club whisky. 

Since then, the dispute has been dubbed the “Whisky War” because of the military ships visiting the island and planting flags and bottles of Canadian whiskey or Danish schnapps to mark their territory.

“I think it was the friendliest of all wars,” Joly said. As the peace agreement was finalized in a ceremony last month, she and Danish Foreign Affairs Minister Jeppe Kofod exchanged bottles of liquor as a nod to the tradition.

On a serious note, Kofod offered that the agreement “sends a message to the world, including Putin, that when there are things you’re disputing over, you have to make the resolution based on international law — not by the law of force, but by the force of law.”

The Greenland Prime Minister, Múte B. Egede, chimed in by calling the deal “a stepping stone to truly connect our countries,” but added there should be more mobility for Inuit people between Nunavut and Greenland. The agreement does preserve freedom of movement on the island for Inuit people, for hunting, fishing, and other activities.

The deal “represents the peaceful resolution of a territorial dispute, at a time when Western countries are emphasizing the necessity of peaceful resolution to territorial disputes in Ukraine, in Taiwan, in the South China Sea,” said Michael Byers, political science professor at the University of British Columbia, in an interview with Politico’s Forrest. “It’s a small opportunity to say and do the right thing.”

In the past, Byers added, both countries have used the island to drum up public sentiment about Arctic sovereignty — often sending soldiers or ministers to visit just before election campaigns. But Joly said it’s critical to “keep the Arctic a low-tension region. We cannot fall into the trap of militarizing the Arctic.”

The deal will become official once Canada and Denmark grant parliamentary approval and will see the island split along a naturally occurring cleft on the rocky outcrop. Anticipating a future “Jeopardy” question, the two countries will then have established the world's longest maritime border at 3,882 kilometers.

We’ll drink to that.

Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 18 books, including his latest collaboration with Bob Drury, Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America’s First Frontier, and Lightning Down: A World War II Story of Survival. Please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com to purchase a copy.