Hans Island: Relationship Between Canada And Denmark

While the tiny island in the Arctic seems to be of little significance, Canada and Denmark still disagree about who owns Hans Island, even 42 years later. The most recent dispute was in 2005 when in July, the Foreign Defense Minister of Canada, Bill Graham, visited the island. This visit “led to the symbolic dispatch of warships to the region.” (Wilkinson et al. 191), and in September, the countries agreed to a truce (Stevenson 263). As extreme as dispatching warships may sound, the relationship between Canada and Denmark over Hans Island is actually quite friendly:
As Peter Taksoe-Jensen, the senior lawyer at the Danish Foreign Ministry, has said: “When the Danish military go there, they leave a bottle of schnapps. And when [Canadian] military