Historical and Legal Study of Sovereignty in the Canadian North

DR. GORDON W. SMITH (1918-2000) was a historian who spent his early career as a professor in Canada, the West Indies, and Africa. He devoted the last twenty-five years of his life to researching and writing the international history of the Canadian Arctic. P. Whitney Lackenbauer is a professor of History at St. Jerome's University (University of Waterloo) who specializes in Arctic sovereignty and security issues, Aboriginal-state relations, circumpolar history, and modern Canadian military, diplomatic and political history. He is the editor of the multi-award-winning A Historical and Legal Study of Sovereignty in the Canadian North (UCalgary Press).

The book is a significant contribution to the field of Arctic studies whether those studies involve history, law, political science or other cognate areas where questions of Canadian sovereignty over the Arctic lands are mooted. It is a critical part of Canadian history and while there have been recent books on some of the contents of the manuscript, none approach the depth of what Smith accomplished. This is a major and brilliant piece of work on a subject of high interest and importance nationally and globally. - Ted L. McDorman, Professor of Law and of Geography, University of Victoria

• ForewordTom and Nell SmithEditor's NoteP. Whitney LackenbaueIntroduction: Territorial Sovereignty Before 18791. The Transfers of Arctic Territories form Great Britain to Canada2. Period of Relative Inactivity and Unconcern, 1870-803. Organization and Administration of the NWT, 1894-19184. Whaling and the Yukon Gold Rush5. The Alaska Boundary Dispute6. Foreign Explorers in the Canadian North, 1877-19177. Canadian Government Expeditions to Northern Waters, 1897-19188. The Sector Principle and the Background of Canada's Sector Claim 9. Vilhjalmur Stefannson and His Plans for Northern Enterprise after the First World War 10. Danish Sovereignty, Greenland, and the Ellesmere Island Affair of 1919-21 11. The Wrangel Island Affair of the Early 1920s 12. The Question of Sovereignty over the Sverdrup Islands, 1925-3013. The Easter Greenland Case and Its Implications for the Canadian North 14. American Explorers in the Canadian Arctic and Related Matters, 1918-39 15. The Eastern Arctic Patrol, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Other Government Activities, 1922-39 16. Epilogue: Henry Larsen, the St. Rock, and the Northwest Passage Voyage of 1940-42Notes Bibliography Additional Readings Index