Arctic expert says we should be better friends with Russia

This week, Denmark announced its claims to the North Pole, and the continental shelf below it.

It's part of an ongoing process where all five countries with Arctic coastline will submit their geographic claims to a UN committee, which will then assess them for scientific merit. It's likely at least some of the claims from Denmark, Norway, Russia, the US, and Canada will overlap—then it will be up to those countries to decide what to do about it. In the meantime, Joël Plouffe says it's important for Canada to maintain good relationships with all our northern—​neighbours even when we have less than cordial dealings with them in the south. 

The Northern Neighbourhood

Plouffe, a fellow at the Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute and Managing Editor of Arctic Yearbook,  says the relationship between the Arctic countries is a special one. Together, they have a shared identity, and must work together to deal with the issues of the region—things like climate change, and shipping. Because of this, it's important for Canada to maintain good relations with Russia, even if things are tense because of Ukraine.

It is a great time to be friendly with Russia, and working on Arctic issues with Russia.'- Joël Plouffe

Canada and Russia remain connected through the Arctic Council, but Plouffe hopes the relationship will improve in 2015: "A rapprochement between governments needs to be done."

The North Pole 

While ownership of the seabed at the top of the world could one day bring resource riches, Plouffe says claim to the actual North Pole doesn't really matter. "It's part of the myth of the Arctic," he says, purely symbolic. But the symbol can be used politically, and he says that's what Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been doing of late. Individual governments can try to connect their country to the north by making it part of their mythology (by giving it a postal code, for example, or naming towns after it), but it doesn't really mean anything: "nobody can own this symbol."

Since it could take decades to even decide who has title to the land underneath it, Plouffe says it's best for all involved to connect over the shared mythology.