US, Canada battle over Beaufort boundary

Alaska leasing proposal, US moratorium on fishing draw Canadian protests; Ottawa has signaled it wants 40-year issue settled

Elizabeth Bluemink

Anchorage Daily News

In the conflict between the United States and Canada over who owns a pie-shaped wedge of the Beaufort Sea off the Alaska-Yukon coast, it appears that what lies to the north of the wedge is the biggest wild card of all.

The dispute over the New Jersey-sized slice of ocean directly northeast of Alaska is getting big attention lately. Drawing a protest from Canada, the State of Alaska recently attempted but failed to auction oil leases within the disputed area.

Canadians also protested the U.S. decision last year, made without their input, to put a moratorium on commercial fishing in a large swath of the Arctic that included the disputed area.

The Canadian government draws a line running straight north from the Alaska-Yukon border as its international boundary — which gives it control of the disputed area. The United States draws a line to the east — which gives it control.

What boosts the dispute’s importance is that using either line would impact the countries’ future claims to seafloor more than 200 miles offshore. This area, called the extended outer continental shelf, stretches far beyond the disputed zone. It is still being mapped but is believed to hold vast oil and gas riches. Canada and other nations are preparing to claim ownership to portions of the extended shelf, but the United States has not announced anything yet.

The countries need to gather more scientific information, said Ashley Roach, a retired U.S. State Department official.

“All of us, Canadians and Americans, are going to face some difficult choices in resolving the dispute,” said Tony Penikett, a former Yukon premier.

No one even knows yet which parts of the seafloor hold the resources, Roach said.

For now, it appears that the United States would be able to claim a larger section of the seafloor if it accepted Canada’s proposed boundary.

The fact that the Canadian boundary line might actually be a better deal for the United States was the key revelation at a meeting of Canadian and U.S. policy experts on March 6 in Anchorage. During the daylong meeting, the group brainstormed ways to resolve the boundary dispute. Roach and Penikett were among the participants. The Alaska attorney general stopped by for a briefing.

Ideas raised during the daylong meeting, hosted by the Institute of the North, ranged from treaties to agreements to jointly managing the disputed area.

Members of the group said they will forward ideas from the meetings to U.S. and Canadian officials. They are also hoping to organize public events in Alaska or Canada to allow tribes and other groups to weigh in.

In terms of oil leasing, it would be in Alaska’s interest to resolve the dispute, “especially if it resulted in more territory,” said Dan Sullivan, the state attorney general. The state’s ownership extends three nautical miles off the coast.

The Canadian government has signaled in recent weeks that it is looking for a resolution to the nearly 40-year-old dispute.

In a speech equivalent of the State of the Union address, the Canadian government said March 5 it wants the country’s northern boundary resolved.