Canada's Leadership of the Arctic Council

June 17, 2011 | PETER HARRISON, SCHOOL OF POLICY STUDIES, QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY

The Arctic Ocean, capped by a dome of ice whose extent varies throughout the year, dominates the Arctic Region. Its coast includes five sovereign states - Canada, the U.S., Russia, Norway and Greenland-Denmark - where indigenous peoples have lived for thousands of years. And though the Arctic is often thought of in the same terms as its southern counterpart, there are few useful points of comparison - for the Antarctic is a continent covered with ice, surrounded by the ocean. It is a place only recently discovered, and has no permanent population.