Canada is fighting with Denmark over a small island.

It’s little more than a piece of rock jutting out of the ocean and apparently we’ve been fighting with Denmark for years.

Denmark?

Hans Island sits off Greenland and ownership has been in dispute for decades.
Guess things got a bit heated in the 70’s and negotiations broke off.

CBC

Now things have flared up again with flags being planted and opinion flying around the internet.

A quick helicopter visit to the barren island by Defence Minister Bill Graham without prior notification to the Danes provoked the latest salvo in the simmering dispute last week. Canadian soldiers also planted a Maple Leaf flag and erected an Inuit stone marker earlier this month.

That prompted the Danish government to call in the Canadian ambassador. The outraged Danes sent a protest letter to Ottawa and a senior official in Copenhagen called Graham’s visit “an occupation.”

The Canadian government appeared to shrug off the Danish offer of negotiations. A Foreign Affairs official said Ottawa would examine any formal request but was in no hurry to reopen talks.

The Danes say the countries’ history of friendly relations should not be subjected to periodic squabbles over a frigid rock barely larger than a football field just south of the North Pole.

“We still believe it is a very minor thing,” said Kristensen. “But if it is, in between, popping up like it is well then it’s getting time to sit down and try to solve it.”

The countries agreed in 1973 to draw a border halfway between Greenland - a semi-autonomous Danish territory - and Canada’s Ellesmere Island.

They could not agree on who should claim Hans Island and decided to resolve the issue at some later date.

The dispute crept into cyberspace Wednesday using the popular Google website as the battleground.

With global warming heating the Arctic, Canada needs to be dealing with it’s military presence and sovereignty there, as submarines navigate the Northwest Passage. It is estimated ships could be using the passage within 25 years.