The north is a matter of identity for Canadians. As Canadian icons Bob and Doug McKenzie’s hit single said, ‘Take off to the great white north, it’s a beauty way to go!’ In practice, most Canadians have no desire to do anything of the sort. It’s cold up there and besides, as I can personally testify, there aren’t any Tim Hortons doughnuts once you get as far north as Churchill, let alone on Hans Island. Alert, on Ellesmere Island, may be the world’s northernmost permanently inhabited settlement, but there’s a reason it has a population of only 170 government workers. Still, Canadians like to know that the north is there, and that it’s theirs. It’s part of what being Canadian is all about, and they don’t want any damn foreigners (especially Americans) messing with what doesn’t belong to them.

Second, there are valuable resources in the region, most notably oil. Canada’s border with America in the Beaufort Sea oil-fields is another area of dispute between the two countries. Concessions elsewhere in the Arctic might be perceived as weakness which would permit American encroachment there also.

Third, and most seriously, the ice in the Arctic is melting rapidly, shrinking by nearly 10 per cent a decade. At the present rate, by 2050 the Arctic Ocean might be entirely ice-free in summer. If you were that nervous Vancouver couple and wanted to live on Queen Elizabeth Island, Hans Island, Ellesmere Island or anywhere else up there, this could only be a good thing. As the title of a University of Toronto seminar once asked, ‘Global Warming. Who cares? It’s cold here’. Already, with the demise of the Soviet Union, the air routes over the Arctic are opening up to commercial traffic, and now global warming offers the possibility that the Northwest Passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans will become fully navigable, shortening the journey from Europe to Asia by 9,000 miles. By the end of the 21st century the islands of northern Canada may find themselves on one of the busiest thoroughfares in international commerce. ~Paul Robinson, The Spectator

When I was young and stupid, I thought Canadian nationalism was one of those contradictions in terms such as bureaucratic efficiency or military intelligence. How could Canadians be nationalist, I foolishly asked myself, when they live in a place like Canada? Of course, I knew nothing about Canada and still have never been to visit our friends to the North (having been in Chicago for over four years, this really is embarrassing), but I had been raised in the fine, old Americanist tradition that regarded Canada as some sort of great historical mistake, the product of the Englishmen who made the obviously “wrong” choice in 1776 and have, so to speak, been paying for it ever since. The vague rumblings of discontent in the western plains suggested to my facile mind of ten years ago that it would only be a little while longer before there would be an inconvenient, all-American land route to Alaska. Being stupid, I assumed this would have been an improvement.

Then I grew up, became a little less stupid, read some George Grant and also came to respect the forefathers of the Confederation, the Loyalists, as the last real American conservatives, whom we foolishly drove out of the country as soon as we could. We have been paying the price ever since. So in this relatively new respect and even admiration for the old Canada, combined with my usual annoyance at all signs of American hegemonism, I say categorically that Washington ought to leave Canada alone and treat it as if it were our good neighbour and not our continental colony. Washington may not care about American sovereignty, but it can at least make some effort to respect that of one of our most trusted allies and neighbours.