Lock, stock, and icebergs? : Defining Canadian sovereignty from Mackenzie King to Stephen Harper

And it represents the tremendous potential of our future." 1 This northern sentiment has been a common feature in the history of a nation which announces itself as the "True North Strong and Free." From the dawn of the Cold War, the point at which the issue of Arctic sovereignty first gained national prominence, to the present day, Canadian governments have consistently voiced their uncompromising [...] THE END OF THE ARCTIC'S SPLENDID ISOLATION The issue of Arctic sovereignty first gained real prominence in Canada with the start of the Cold War. [...] As was the case during many of the defence projects of the 1940s, Canada invested a great deal of effort into generating the appearance of Canadian control. [...] The question of who owned the frozen waters of the Canadian North was one which had never attracted much concern, though by the 1950s, a dramatic increase in Arctic shipping - particularly through the Northwest Passage - had begun to shift concern from the land to the water.7 4 ADAM LAJEUNESSE The first explicit mention of Canadian sovereignty over Arctic waters came in 1946 when Lester Pearson, s [...] Similar to the situation in the Arctic lands, to have made such a public claim would have pressured the government to spend the resources needed to exercise a greater degree of control over those waters; it may also have provoked an awkward challenge from the United States.