Many Canadians were puzzled at recent reports of an ownership squabble over Hans Island, a desolate piece of rock, 100 metres wide, in the Nares Strait between Canada's Ellesmere Island and the Danish territory of Greenland.

Many Canadians had never heard of Hans Island. What was all the fuss about? Who in his, or her, right mind would want to live there? Who would even want to visit there? Since this issue of the Canadian Vindicator e-zine deals with rocks in its Irish section, it seems fitting that it should also deal with rocks in its Canadian section.

Thanks to Paul Reynolds, a BBC world affairs correspondent, light has been shed on the reason(s) why Canadian and Danish diplomatic feathers became ruffled. In an article on the British BBC web site, headlined "The Arctic's new gold rush" Reynolds gave the real gen on the real issue. Hans Island in and of itself may not be worth fighting over, but its geographic location is key to ownership of unimaginable riches waiting to be discovered in the Arctic land mass that is presently covered by ice and snow, ice and snow which are disappearing due to climate change.

Mineral deposits may be one of those riches, but vast oil fields are what big companies hope to find. The US Geological Survey estimates that a quarter of the world's undiscovered energy resources lies in Arctic areas.

Reynold quotes Peter Croker, an Irish government petroleum expert who is also chairman of the UN's Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, a body set up to arbitrate on how far a country's coastal rights extend.

"It's the only place where a number of countries encircle an enclosed ocean. There is a lot of overlap. If you take a normal coastal state, the issues are limited to adjoining states and an outer boundary. In the Arctic, it is quite different".

The US and Canada argue over rights in the North West Passage, Norway and Russia over the Barents Sea, the Russian parliament is refusing to ratify an agreement with the US over the Bering Sea, and Denmark is seeking to trump everyone by claiming the North Pole itself.

According to the BBC article, in the dispute over Hans Island ministers from Canada and Denmark pay visits to the island, and landing parties from both navies raise their national flag and leave whisky and brandy as signs of their visit.

How much whisky? How much brandy? A really thirsty person might be tempted to find out. What happened to over proof rum, the staple of the North? In how many official languages were the labels on the bottles printed? Has anyone asked the Commissioner of Official Languages to investigate?

Hans Island may prove to be the rock on which governments founder. Let's have a parliamentary committee study the issue, with taxpayers paying for Members' parkas when they travel to have a "han's-on" look.

It isn't much, but one pun a year isn't too much to suffer.

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