Political Rights in the Arctic

Abstract

UNTRAVELED air routes and undeveloped resources in the Arctic are now being thought of as valuable for the future, even the near future. For this, Mr. Stefansson is perhaps more responsible than any other one individual. That the French, in 1763, gave up Canada rather than Guadaloupe to the British, who accepted the former instead of the latter with hesitating reluctance, and that tie judgment of Seward regarding Alaska had to wait a generation or so for its vindication, have been some of the effective historical arguments of the practical explorer, who is so often deemed merely a prejudiced dreamer. The area of the earth's surface north of the Arctic Circle (66? 30', as usually drawn; strictly it is 66? 31%') comprises over eight million square miles. What States have sovereignty over this vast region? To what countries are we to assign the known and the unknown ?