Alaska boundary dispute

File:1903 Alaska boundary dispute plus bc claim.png

Varying claims in the Alaska panhandle before arbitration in 1903. In blue is the border claimed by the United States, in red is the border claimed by Canada and the United Kingdom. Green is the boundary asserted by British Columbia. Yellow indicates the modern border.

The Alaska Boundary Dispute was a territorial dispute between the United States and Canada (then a British Dominion with its foreign affairs controlled from London). It was resolved by arbitration in 1903. The dispute had been going on between the Russian and British Empires since 1821, and was inherited by the United States as a consequence of the Alaska Purchase in 1867. The final resolution favored the American position, and Canada did not get an outlet from the Yukon gold fields to the sea. The disappointment and anger in Canada was directed less at the United States, and more at the British government for betraying Canadian interests in pursuit of a friendly relationship between Britain and the United States.

History

In 1825 Russia and Britain signed a treaty to define the borders of their respective colonial possessions, the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1825. Part of the wording of the treaty was that:

"...the said line shall ascend to the north along the channel called Portland Channel as far as the point of the continent where it strikes the 56th degree of north latitude; from this last-mentioned point, the line of demarcation shall follow the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast as far as the point of intersection of the 141st degree of west longitude."

The rather vague phrase "the mountains parallel to the coast" was further qualified thus:

"Whenever the summit of the mountains... shall prove to be at the distance of more than ten marine leagues from the ocean, the limit... shall be formed by a line parallel to the winding of the coast, and which shall never exceed the distance of ten marine leagues therefrom."

This part of the treaty language was really an agreement on general principles for establishing a boundary in the area in the future, rather than any exact demarcated line.

The United States bought Alaska in 1867, and in 1871 British Columbia (which was formed in 1858 from the remaining part of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia District following the Oregon Treaty plus the New Caledonia District and the Stikine Territory) united with the new Canadian confederation. The Dominion of Canada then requested a survey, but it was refused by the United States as too costly: the border area was very remote and sparsely settled, and without economic or strategic interest at the time. In 1898 the national governments agreed on a compromise, but the government of British Columbia rejected it. U.S. President McKinley proposed a permanent lease of a port near Haines, but Canada rejected that compromise.

Around that time, the Klondike Gold Rush enormously increased the population of the general area, which reached 30,000, composed largely of Americans. Between the 1880s and 1890s, an estimated 100,000 fortune seekers moved to the Klondike region in search of gold.

Even though only a fraction of these miners actually discovered gold, the sudden influx of people greatly increased the importance of the region and the desirability of fixing an exact boundary. There are claims that Canadian citizens were harassed by the U.S. as a deterrent to making any land claims. Finally, in 1903, the Hay-Herbert Treaty entrusted the decision to an arbitration by a mixed tribunal of six members: three Americans, two Canadians, and one British. Like the 1872 arbitration of the Pig War which determined the British - American Boundary in the San Juan Islands this dispute settlement mechanism would prove to work in the U.S.A.'s favor.

The main legal points at issue were which definition of the coastal range should be chosen as the basis of the boundary and whether the "ten marine leagues", 30 nautical miles (35 mi; 56 km), should be measured from the heads of the fjords or from a baseline which would cut across the mouths of the fjords.

After several tie votes, and with the Christmas season approaching, the British arbitration board member Lord Alverstone sided with the United States position on these basic issues, although the final agreed demarcation line fell significantly short of the maximal U.S. claim (it was a compromise falling roughly between the maximal U.S. and maximal British/Canadian claim). The Panhandle (the Tatshenshini-Alsek region) was not quite exclaved from the rest of British Columbia.

Canadian controversy

Canadian judges refused to sign the award which had been issued on 20 October 1903 when Canadian delegates disagreed with Lord Alverstone's vote. This led to violent anti-British emotions erupting throughout Canada (including Quebec) as well as a surge in Canadian nationalism separate from an Imperial identity. Canadian anger gradually subsided, although suspicions of the U.S. provoked by the award may have contributed to Canada's rejection of free trade in the 1911 "reciprocity election".

Irritated at the decision, Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier asserted that Canada's lack of treaty-making power made it difficult to maintain its rights internationally, but he took no immediate action and the situation remained essentially unchanged until Canada became a separate signatory at the Treaty of Versailles and still later when the government of William Lyon Mackenzie King took independent charge of foreign policy beginning in 1921.

See also

• List of areas disputed by the United States and Canada
• Foreign relations of Canada
• Canada–United States border
• Canada–United States relations
• Canada–United Kingdom relations
• United Kingdom–United States relations
• Pig War
• Oregon Boundary Dispute
• List of Boundary Peaks of the Alaska-British Columbia border

References

Bibliography

• Carroll, F. M. "Robert Lansing and the Alaska Boundary Settlement." International History Review 1987 9(2): 271-290. Issn: 0707-5332
• Gelber, Lionel M. The rise of Anglo-American friendship: a study in world politics, 1898-1906 (1938)
• Gibson, F. W. "The Alaskan Boundary Dispute," Canadian Historical Association Report (1945) pp 25-40
• Kohn, Edward P. This Kindred People: Canadian-American Relations and the Anglo-Saxon Idea, 1895-1903 (2005)
• Munro, John A. "English-Canadianism and the Demand for Canadian Autonomy: Ontario's Response to the Alaska Boundary Decision, 1903." Ontario History 1965 57(4): 189-203. Issn: 0030-2953
• Cranny, Michael "Horizons: Canada Moves West" pg 256 1999 Prentice Hall Ginn Canada
• Penlington, Norman. The Alaska Boundary Dispute: A Critical Reappraisal. McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1972. 120 pp.
• The Canadian Encyclopedia: Alaska Boundary Dispute

Resources

• Report relative to the Alaska Boundary Question, submitted to the Hon. J.H. Turner, Minister of Finance etc. etc. (sic), 15 August, 1896., Alexander Begg, Victoria, British Columbia: R. Wolfenden, 1896
• Review of the Alaskan boundary question, Alexander Begg, Victoria, British Columbia, publ. Unknown, 1900
• Statement of facts regarding the Alaska boundary question, Alexander Begg, Victoria, British Columbia, publ. R. Wolfenden, 1902, report to David McEwen Eberts, Attorney-General of British Columbia.
• Survey of boundary line between Alaska and British Columbia : letter from the Acting Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting a communication from the Secretary of State, submitting an estimate of appropriation for survey of the boundary line between Alaska and British Columbia, R.Wike, US Dept. of State, publ. s.l.: s.n., 1895.
• British Columbia from the earliest times to the present, Vol 2, Chapter XXXI - Alaska Boundary Dispute, E.O.S. Scholefield & Frederic William Howay, S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., Vancouver, British Columbia, 1914