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Danes pipe up with their own North Pole claims
Danish announcement joins already crowded field
Randy Boswell, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, August 10, 2007

Just a week after Russia's controversial flag-planting expedition to the North Pole drew fire from Canada, and with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on his own Arctic sovereignty tour in the North, Denmark's science minister has claimed that findings by his country's researchers indicate "Denmark could be given the North Pole."

The claim by Helge Sander, Denmark's minister of science, technology and innovation, comes on the eve of a new Danish-led expedition to the Arctic and amid intensifying interest among northern nations in securing shipping and seabed rights in the oil-rich region around the North Pole.

In an interview Thursday with the Danish television station TV2, Sander said the joint Danish-Swedish expedition -- with its path toward the pole being cleared by a chartered Russian icebreaker, and with one Canadian scientist on board the research vessel -- was aimed at cementing Denmark's claims to extended seabed territory north of Danish-controlled Greenland.

Mr. Sander said "preliminary investigations done so far are very promising" and suggest the disputed Lomonosov Ridge -- a 1,500-kilometre undersea mountain range that runs past the pole between Siberia and North America - is a geological extension of the northern coast of Greenland.

"There are things suggesting that Denmark could be given the North Pole," he said.

In Ottawa, the Danish ambassador to Canada, Poul Kristensen, told CanWest News that "it's no secret that Denmark, on behalf of Greenland" has interests in the Arctic and "of course, potentially, we can make claims."

Mr. Kristensen added: "That's the whole point. We've been co-operating with Canada to get data on the Arctic."

But even as scientists from the five Arctic countries continue collaborating on polar research aimed at mapping the seabottom, the governments of Canada, Russia, the U.S., Denmark and Norway remain on competitive terms when it comes to staking claims in an area that is becoming more accessible because of global warming and is thought to contain 25% of the planet's untapped petroleum reserves.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in the Arctic on Friday to announce a new deep-water seaport and military training centre to help strengthen Canada's presence in the North, has said the Russian trek to the pole shows that "sovereignty in our Arctic is going to be an important issue as we move into the future."

Now the Danes - still at odds with Canada over the ownership of tiny Hans Island in the boundary waters between Ellesmere Island and Danish-controlled Greenland - are again pressing their claims to the potentially lucrative seafloor area around the North Pole.

Kristensen, quoting other recent remarks by Sander, said Friday that "we are speaking of values in the billions" when it comes to potential Arctic oil,  "and therefore the area, of course, is of interest to us."

Canadian scientists believe the Lomonosov Ridge could well be interpreted as a continuation of Ellesmere Island, giving this country a strong counterclaim against potential Russian and Danish land grabs.

Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the five polar nations could acquire huge swaths of Arctic seafloor territory if they can prove the claimed areas are linked to their continental shelves.

Canada and Denmark have been collaborating over the past two years in gathering data about the Lomonosov Ridge on this side of the Arctic Ocean.

Russia initially claimed ownership of the ridge in 2001, but its scientists were sent back to the Arctic by the UN to gather more evidence supporting the claim, now due in 2009.

In June, Russian scientists said they had fresh proof that the ridge is connected to their country, a claim quickly dismissed by Canada and other countries as premature, unverified and ultimately subject to UN approval.

But the Russian assertions led to last week's audacious dive in a small submarine by a team of scientists and politicians to plant a flag on the North Pole seabed. The feat was impressive but widely mocked. In Canada, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay dismissed it as "just a show" that didn't threaten this country's sovereignty in the Arctic.

Canada has until 2013 to submit its territorial claims, but the federal scientist leading the seafloor studies told CanWest News Service earlier this week there's a chance the research mission might be in jeopardy because of the tight deadline, strained resources and unpredictable Arctic ice conditions.

Jacob Verhoef, head of the Atlantic division of the Geological Survey of Canada, noted that one of his researchers would be aboard the Danish-Swedish expedition that prompted Sander's latest comment about Denmark's claims in the polar region.

On Thursday, a top U.S. climate researcher announced that the Arctic ice cover is shrinking faster this summer than at any time since reliable satellite images of the polar cap became available in 1979.

The Danish government first stated its intent to vie for possible North Pole riches in 2004, back when its Hans Island feud with Canada -- now being dealt with quietly by diplomats -- was still boiling amid heated public exchanges over the remote and icy rock.

There is a chance that the North Pole could become Danish," Mr. Sander said at the time, and "it could give us access to oil and gas."

Danes pipe up with their own North Pole claims (http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=9426400f-de86-497d-92df-f7bbcaab602d)