Fight for the Artic

I am commenting on an article called "Artic odyssey a test of ingenuity", from the Sunday April 1st edition of the Toronto Star.

The article is discussing the challenges for the Canadian forces that are patrolling the artic, in what is called "an unprecedented snowmobile trek to enforce Canadian sovereignty" Major Chris Bergeron believes that this operation is to show that the Canadian military is "capable of operating on sea ice and land that Canada claims for its own"

The reason this article is of interest to me is that in spatial terms, how do you really protect space that is defined somehow on paper, but not physically defined, that is something that is clearly visible. I’m sure that there are signs along the Canadian/USA border, and is somewhat easier to protect, but in the artic its a little different. One reason is that this has never been done before, so there can and have been unforeseen difficulties (extreme cold, ice breaking, reaction of equipment to the environment, etc.) As well, the concept of a certain space belonging to a country, in this case waters, is interesting. This is so because government officials will say that certain waters belong to them, when such water is constantly moving around, because well, its water.

So for land it’s a physically space, but for ownership of water is it a conceptual space? Is it an imaginary space? If they are to protect sea ice, what happens when it melts? Will there be no land? So it will be interesting to see what the outcome will be.