Talk:Alaska boundary dispute

Untitled
So, the British sided with the Americans, and the current border reflects the American claim? What were the differences between this and the Canadian claim? - Unsigned User:Geo Swan


 * Actually, the current boundary does not reflect the maximal U.S. claim. I'll try to trype in some more info.  AnonMoos 22:23, 5 October 2005 (UTC)


 * The British didn't exactly side with the Americans; the border settlement was an arbitration (the Kaiser again, IIRC, as it had been with his father at the end of the San Juans Dispute). The British backed down because of threats by T.E. Roosevelt that he would invade and annex British Columbia if he didn't get his way.  The main difference between the British hard position and the way things are now is that under the British terms, thet "Yukon Ports" - Skagway and Haines and Dyea etc would have been "British", i.e. part of British Columbia.

Canada didn't have a say in it, other than consulting London; British North American (Canadian) foreign affairs were still in London's bailiwick at that time (until 1931 or 1927 or something).

As it is under the treaty, the site of Forts Stikine and Taku should be within British Columbia; and in fact the mouths of the Stikine and Taku should be, but they've silted in a few miles downstream since the treaty was signed; the border hasn't been revised to reflect that (obviously not, even though it's in the language; same thing with the mis-survey of the 49th Parallel that's not going to get corrected, either).

There are two sticking points remaining in the Alaska Boundary Settlement. One is that the treaty stipulates that the western shoreline of the Portland Canal is the boundary; US maps continue to show mid-channel. Similarly with the A-B Line, which is between Point A and Point B on the north side of the Dixon Entrance; US maps show the boundary as being mid-Dixon Entrance, and the US/Alaska have even issued oil/drilling-exploration permits on "their" side of that line.

Same kind of fudge-up with the Oregon Treaty; during the Salmon War of the mid-1990s Canadian commercial vessels (whale watching boats) were busted by US Coast Guard in the area of the San Juans; but the treaty is very clear that ALL commercial vessels south of the 49th Parallel are to be unhindered; that would even include in Rosario Strait, far from the current border in the Haro Strait; during the same kafuffle Sen. Slade Gorton (State-Sen) in Washington invoked the treaty to demand free passage through the Johnstone Strait for American fishing vessels (nothing of the kind is guaranteed in the Oregon Treaty, or for that matter in the Alaska treaty either) and called on the US Navy to enforce the "international waterway" (which is all of a mile wide in spots). Thing is it was the US who passed legislation that attacked non-American ships using this route, i.e. the act that makes it so that preference is given to vessels sailing from American port to American port over those from a "foreign port" to an American port; this act was passed specifically to route the Yukon shipping trade through Seattle over Vancouver, even though it was Canadian/British waters that the route traversed.Skookum1 23:15, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Further Thoughts
Just considering the opening statements; the treaty was actually between the British Empire, with the Dominion of Canada as a signatory party, IIRC; BC was not involved in the actual signing.

And just as aside the phrasing of the second condition of the treaty cited:


 * Whenever the summit of the mountains shall be at a distance of more than ten marine leagues from the ocean, the limit shall be formed by a line parallel to the winding of the coast, and which shall never exceed the distance of ten marine leagues therefrom.

...is completely bizarre for anybody who's ever actually looked at a map of the coastline. The negotiators were in London and Washington and Ottawa, far away with only the dimmest idea of where they were talking about. Much the same as the Oregon Treaty, only worse; there "the deepest channel" seemed at least a bit logical, even though they didn't note the issues on the map with Point Roberts and the Gulf Islands/San Juans which make that border a bit of an absurdity; which so is the 49th Parallel from the Rockies west....that aside, the Alaska treaty issue cited is utterly bizarre; the Alaskan coast is a ragged array of inlets and bays, pierced by several large rivers. There is no "crest of the mountains", for one thing - other than crowsflight-drawn lines from high peak to high peak, which is what was done - because of those rivers, and because of the way the ranges and the terrain in the region are charted. "No more than ten leagues from the sea would yield a twisted, contorted, snaking boundary; Forts Taku and Stikine were to be British, that is, the estuary of those rivers was to be British; but they have silted in downstream in the century since and the old saltwater access intended in the treaty is no longer, and the boundary (of course) has not heen updated.

The British had imagined, in their arrangement with the Russians, that they had the mainland of what has since become the Panhandle, and the Russians had the archipelago - which, after all, is where all their bases other than Juneau were. Dyea and Skagway existed solely as access points to British/Canadian territory, and like Taku and Stikine it was assumed they were naturally British/Canadian in character; though whether part of Yukon or part of British Columbia nobody had bothered to sort out. BC's boundary had been stipulated at the 60th parallel since 1866 or so but nothing was carven in stone in Western Canada in this era, as the evolving boundaries of the Northwest Territories and Prairie Provinces serve to remind. The Americans turned out to be more aggressive in their claims, invoking Russian maps which showed everything to the Mackenzie Mountains and Rockies to be Russian. The Territory of Stickeen (sic) had been invoked in the course of the Alaska Purchase era in the 1860s to prevent American claims to the inland region of the about-to-be-no-longer-Russian sector of the Coast. It was quickly absorbed into British Columbia at the same time that the boundary was extended north to the 60th Parallel and east to the Peace River District. Even in the 1870s there were British Columbian politicians who imagined that the British Columbia boundary was somewhere east of Calgary, and several maps were published to that effect. They should have stipulated that in the Terms of Union, and given the stonewalling faced over the railway it's not as if something else wasn't owed in exchange for the obligations of the Terms not being fulfilled, while others were being interpreted too strongly.

One thing that's not often understood about the Russian claim, though it's not directly related to the circumstances of the treaty, is that the Russians had trading and ownership rights south of 54'40, all the way to their compromise with New Spain/Mexico, which had come out at the Oregon boundary despite settlements still down in the Russian River and Sebastopol area nearer the Bay; similarly the HBC had trading rights in the Alaska Panhandle, and the two fur companies pooled resources (even during the Crimean War, despite military preparations on both sides in the area) and the HBC was the Russian America Fur Company's main supply of dairy and other products. This did not include territorial political rights, only shared trading zones; and again, the British thought they had the whole mainland. Juneau, for instance, is on a virtual island because of the way it's hemmed in by the Juneau Icefield against the sea; it is totally marine in character and has no overland access to the outside world, nor any other town in the Panhandle; none of which have roads to the other - other than Skagway and Haines, but to get to the one from the other you have to go through Canada; and Hyder, which is accessed only through British Columbia and is hundreds of road miles from the nearest port to an Alaskan ferry.

The "BC Panhandle" - the lower Tatshenshini-Iskut basin, between Mount Fairweather and the Yukon border west of the Yukon passes and their ports - resulted as a part of the British/Canadian insistence on riparian access, that is, the right to access the sea via any of the major coastal rivers draining British territory.

Anyway, this long digression a spin off that "ten leagues from the sea" thing; the country in question was built by giants; the treaty was phrased by men who had no idea of the nature of the region, or its scale, and said something that was totally absurd as if it could become legal fact....the boundary as finally conceived in 1903 could not have been dreamt of in 1803 - between the necessary mountaineering/outdoors and surveyor skills, all that could have been attempted in such times is cardinal points on accessible ground.

NPOV issues again
As with my comments on the talk page at Oregon boundary dispute, this article has NPOV issues relating to US-biased perceptions/mythologies of the history. Example:


 * Around that time, the Klondike Gold Rush enormously increased the population of the general area, which reached 30,000, in large part composed of Americans.

"The general area" in this case - from Ketchikan and the Portland Canal to Dyea/Haines/Skagway and the toe of the Malaspina Glacier to Whitehorse and Dawson - is larger than California. Much larger. 30,000 reached Dawson City in the first wave; how many were turned back at the White Pass or Chilkoot Pass for lack of supplies or carrying weapons, I'm not sure; how many there were in Skagway and Haines at any one time is a matter for estimates based on shipping records. What's certain is that the Americans in Skagway were dominated by a bunch of hoodlums under Soapy Smith. Smith and others of his ilk would have stormed the Yukon territory if not held back at the summit of the passes by the RNWMP's gatling guns; annexation a la California or a la Hawaii would have proceeded apace; don't forget Hawaii has only recently been illegally seized and annexed by the US, and the US was busy in a nasty imperialist war against Spain (under the guise of anti-imperialism, of course); Britain had every reason to get jumpy; Canada (meaning the central Canadian polity in TO, Ottawa and Mtl) every reason to want a compromise, as they would be the main battlefield of a US-Britain war at this time (other than the high seas). But that's what Roosevelt was threatening; found that out at the AMNH, actually, as a spin-off find of the fresco concerning TER's brokering of the Russo-Japanese Peace a few years later; not sure of the source but once I find it I'll post it of course.

Anyway, the quoted line needs reworking; 'mostly Americans' in the context here gives the impression of backing up the extreme US claims - which would have shut the British/Canadians off the summits of the passes and wound up with de facto annexation of the Yukon and northwestern BC/Atlin-Stikine areas. One glaring omission is that the original Russo-UK treaties specified British control of the Yukon ports and Stikine and Taku estuaries; and the US claims abrogated that. NPOV issues are really common in articles dealing with common US-Canada history; the San Juan Dispute comes to mind also, as well as the Oregon; and the Aroostook War comes off the same way in its current form. This is a failing of Canadian input as much as it is the usual blindness of American writers to other national perspectives; makes me think I should have a look over the Mexican-American War article to see how fairly (or not) the Mexican view is presented. Similarly, the annexation of California and Hawaii involve rather nasty political issues of the adventurist, filibustering kind; but I wonder if those state articles include anything about that.

Not that I want to dump on the Alaska Project, and I'm interested in learning more about specifics of Alaskan history (I'm in BC); but I do want to remind all writers for Wikipedia that the US view of history isn't the only view; and when writing articles concerning other Powers and their proxies the other points of view should be presented; this is not a US school textbook, but an open-input information resource not meant to have national biases or political ties. NonPOV right? Make it so.Skookum1 18:09, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Roosevelt's Threat
I'm the one who came forward with this, although I see someone else adjusted the language of my original item. Where I first came across it myself was - for some reason - during a visit to the AMNH in New York City, where the murals in the main lobby celebrate Roosevelt's involvement in ending the Russo-Japanese War; it may have been in bumpf from the museum, or in an article I was reading around that time (in what I admit to not remembering) and I remarked on it because I had never seen it mentioned before, which surprised me as I know my NW border histories fairly well; since then I've come across it again in a couple of local histories, albeit in different language than I remember it (which was an out-and-out ultimatum). So OK, I'll have to dig it up, short of finding an exhaustive history of the Alaska Boundary Dispute itself (several months ago I saw a really interesting book on Russo-British war concerns in the North Pacific, even after 1867, but didn't have the cash to buy it...).

The particular threat as it was "given" to me in whichever article, was that Roosevelt had threatened to invade and annex British Columbia if the US didn't get its way on the Yukon Ports and other aspects of the Boundary; the British were busy elsewhere in the world (esp. South Africa during the particular time period in question) and, while not liking to give ground to the US, contented themselves with control of the pass summits and the main goldfields. Such extremist threats are commonplace in PacNW history; such as Slade Gorton's demands (as if he'd had the authority to order it) for the US Navy to "force the Inside Passage" during the Salmon War of the 1990s. I don't think the British were all that worried about war; more they were dismayed by Roosevelt's lack of diplomatic couth in making such a threat; he was strutting tall after taking down the Spanish Empire by a few notches. I think what the connection to the AMNH might have been was to do with the idea that Roosevelt's pro-Japanese diplomacy in wound up plunking the Russians and British into an unlikely alliance, and it was the legacy of the Alaska Boundary Settlement that made the British view the Roosevelt's Russo-Japanese settlement somewhat warily; it may have been in whatever discussed that that the reference to invade and annex British Columbia was mentioned.

As for the other change to the article that there were "claims" that Canadian citizens were harrassed by US authorities and individuals, this is a truism and axiomatic to the history of the whole affair. Quick reference here is in Pierre Berton's Klondike, which discusses the various nastinesses of Soapy Smith and others, and also discusses the harrassment and regulation of British/Canadian-registered shipping accessing the Yukon ports (Skagway, Haines, Dyea); whatever that US shipping act that requires ships from one US port to another US port to not stop anywhere else, that was EXPLICITLY legislated to hurt shipping and freight companies in Victoria and Vancouver, favouring Seattle-Skagway (e.g.) over Vancouver-Skagway; even though nearly all traffic along the route was bound for British/Canadian territory (the Yukon), and Skagway and Haines et al were actually on disputed soil to start with (never mind that they were being run by a bunch of hooligans). So for THAT "claim" - that Canadians were harrassed by Americans during the dispute - I'll gladly cite Berton, and he's not alone......Skookum1 06:44, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I found my cite for this, an old news clipping I'd thankfully saved which just got found during a spring cleaning toss-out....it's from the Toronto Globe and Mail and I guess I confused it with the AMNH because I read it during, or around the time of, my trip to New York and it was on my mind when I was in the AMNH. My glasses are missing so I'll just transcribe the last relevant paragraph of the article for now, but later when I can see better I'll type out the whole thing as it also provides "BCPOV".  Hmmm....having trouble reading it; date of article/column is July 1, 2000 (or July ?? 12?  2? too blurry to see....sigh), and the column was by a Ron Haggart, on the main Op-Ed page ("Comment" section in the Globe's layout).  More details later but I knew this was the case; corroborative information on roosevelt' threat to declare war if the US didn't get its way on the Yukon Ports (NB in need of an article); there must be something in thte diplomatic histories of this that Haggart got his information from.Skookum1 21:38, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Clarification and expansion

 * What was the name of the Russian-British treaty?
 * It's usually just called the Russo-British Treaty of 1825, but it may have a formal "Treaty of Wherever" formal name. Is there a listing of British treaties?
 * Treaty of St. Petersburg (1825) is the official name of the treaty.Skookum1 (talk) 21:10, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * A map of the various proposed boundaries would be very helpful.


 * Got a good one to post, historic and public-domain as far as I can figure out; nice-looking, too and good detail.Skookum1 00:07, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * What is this whole business about the "A-B Line" and 54°40'N mentioned in the Dixon Entrance article, and should "1903 Alaska Boundary Award" point to this article?


 * The A-B Line runs from two points on the southern tip of the Alaska Panhandle, presumably from one on the jut of the mainland/islet or whatever it is over by the Portland Canal/Observatory Inlet to a rock or something, maybe the southern tip of Prince of Wales Island. It's not the same as the 54-40 degree of latitude exactly; although one of its terminal points is, presumably the coastal one rather than the one out by Prince of Wales Island.  The reason the British/Canadians wanted the boundary that way was because of the emerging railhead/port potential at Prince Rupert (then only a politician's wet dream, although the route had been talked about since the initial surveys for the CPR); the Dixon Entrance had to be kept non-international waters, i.e. such that US military intrusion into them would be considered an act of aggression.  Our Coast Guard and Dept of Fisheries and Oceans tolerated US fishermen for decades; then a number of times Canadian vessels fishing in the Dixon Entrance were seized by US Coast Guard and taken to Wrangell; in clear violation of the treaty.  Inevitably they're let go but largely Ottawa looks the other way, things like the Auto Pact and whatever else the feds need to hustle the Americans over being more important than anything that goes on in BC, especialy a remote corner of it.  Even if it concerns the country's boundary, which Ottawa is used to sniffing at and looking the other way; these are typical BC sour grapes but the history is true. Skookum1 00:07, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * You'll notice that on the Topozone maps, which are USGS, the boundary is shown in the middle of the Dixon Entrance; then compare the Treaty text. Alaska has been selling drilling leases in that area (as the hatch-markings indicate, I think) even though under the treaty they have no right to do so.  But who's BC to talk?  BC sold forestry and mining leases over vast tracts of land they have no formal title to, so....but in terms of the A-B Line, that's what it's about; the treaty says it's from Point A to Point B.  The modern US insists it's the middle of the Dixon Entrance.Skookum1 00:07, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Sounds like that 1903 Alaska Boundary Award should be separate, i.e. details of the agreement and its context, since the dispute and the treaty/award aren't quite the same thing; Oregon boundary dispute and Oregon Treaty are separate, so there's your precedent.Skookum1 00:07, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

-- Beland 19:40, 30 April 2006 (UTC) Have to read it later.Skookum1 00:07, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
 * This article seems to contradict Hay-Herbert Treaty regarding the resolution of the dispute.


 * Is the boundary really movable? Is there a phrase to this effect in the treaty, or is it implied?
 * With the rapid retreat of glaciers in Tarr Inlet, the head of Tarr Inlet will eventually move north. Given that Canada and US boundary gives the US jurisdiction to the head of the inlet, the boundary between US and Canada will need to move to reflect this change.


 * I was in Tarr Inlet in Glacier Bay in August 2000. The toe of the glacier at that time was a few hundred meters north of the boundary (on the Canadian side), and there was a Canadian naval vessel there close to the ice.  We were told they were there to patrol Canadian waters.  This seemed rather odd given the geographic circumstances.  Anyway, in light of reading this article on this treaty, and what I observed, it seems that neither government is keen on moving the boundary.  Is this a reasonable assessment, or has it just (in)conveniently never come up?  mike5816 06:07, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * That's a cute story, and quite uncharacteristic of the Canadian Forces or the politicians pulling their strings....was it CF or Coast Guard, I wonder? Either way, they would have had to have US permission to navigate into there in the first place - unless they towed their vessel over the pass from the Tat - Fitzcarraldo-style - and you do have to wonder waht they were patrolling for.  Grow-ops hidden away in the vicinity of Mount Fairweather, handgun smugglers, illeaglly-sized fishnets?  Usually that kind of behaviour is done by the US (e.g. re the Northwest Passage) and it does sound reiminiscent of various manoeuvring in events like teh Pig War.   Anyway, interesting, not citable as it's our own personal encounter, but it almost makes me wish there'd been a diplomatic incident so things like this could be cited; a bit after the Salmon War so prob. not connected with that. As far as I understand boundary-treaty law, care was taken in all cases to say "the boundary as surveyed" rather than rely on potentially-shiftable geographic designations alone (this is why discrepancies in the surveyed border vs. the aactual 49th Parallel have not resulted in border changes).  If anything, the US is the one wanting to move the boundary (see Dixon Entrance); any pro-BC move to the boundary would involve a re-taking of the lands between the Portland Canal and Revillagigedo Island, plus Skwagway and Haines; not likely huh?  I was wrong previously about Fort Stikine; it wasn't on the Stikine itself, but on Etolin Island; it was the right of river navigation/access that was disputed, also the location of border posts there; theoretically Canada has right-of-access to the Stikine, Taku and Iskut, not sure about the Unuk, Chilkat and others.....Skookum1 (talk) 21:24, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Content copied from external site?
Is it OK to directly copy text from the http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0000107 site? AnonMoos 19:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Seen people quote the Canadian Encyclopedia (not to be considered authoritative, by the way) on another wiki page; a whole paragraph, but italicized and introduced and cited as such. I think a brief, italicized and cited quote is OK; but without the cite it's a big no-no; unless you rework the syntax of a sentence/paragraph (a handy trick and, if you're good enough, legit) then you just need it in the ref list; but a direct quote, without quotes/italics and a cite -uh-uh.Skookum1 23:51, 14 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Then IP 24.108.168.95's edits are probably problematic... AnonMoos

BC & Pacific Northwest History Forum
Please see RE BC & Pacific Northwest History Forum re: Talk:List of United States military history events. If you think maybe I should also move some or copy some of my other stuff from NW history and BC history pages let me know; I never mean to blog, but I'm voluble and to me everything's interconnected; never meaning to dominate a page so have made this area to post my historical rambles on. Thoughts?Skookum1

HBC-RAC agreement of 1839 re Panhandle trading rights
For the interest of anyone contributing to this page, I have copied into a sandbox page a passage in the British Columbia Chronicle Adventures by Sea and Land by Helen B. and G.P.V. Akrigg a few pages concerning the HBC-RAC agreement of 1839 in regard to the RAC leasing the mainland of the Panhandle to the HBC in return for a supply of foodstuffs and other considerations. Please see the relevant section on my BC & Pacific Northwest resources sandbox.Skookum1 23:33, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Cleaned up map
Created a cleaned-up version of the map. Thought I'd post it here for comment before I actually changed anything. shaggy 14:35, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Definitely looks better... AnonMoos 15:51, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


 * allright, I've swapped the images. I think this one is much clearer and cleaner, and conveys the information in a much more understandable way. shaggy 12:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Beautiful, thank you very much. jengod 19:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, thank you; I had another historical map I was going to scan that was a bit better than the previous, but this one is by far superior because of its nice clean look. And thanks for making sure the southern boundary is correct ;-) (see additions to main article).Skookum1 20:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * If I give you a few basemaps to choose from, any chance I can get you to do an equivalent for the San Juans dispute boundaries/channels; I've got a historic source map showing their complexity which I'd have to rough out digitally as I don't have a working scanner; impressed by this one, the more I see it the more I like it. Gets your attention.Skookum1 01:50, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm sure the US government would shoot me for actually using the proper border here, if they could... I'm willing to take a look at the other maps, see if I can do it justice. shaggy 06:07, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Please upload this map to Commons, I'd like to use it in the german Wikipedia. 85.233.33.231 (talk) 22:08, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Just re-looking at this map because of the query in teh following section (q.v.) and startled to realize the British claim is shown as running west from the head of hte Portland Canal, i.e. in such a way as to concede the mainland between the Canal and Revillagigedo; is that a latitude that the line shown uses? Or is it an error? Were the British ever prepared to give up the Portland Canal? Or am I just not readin the map right?Skookum1 (talk) 03:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The appropriate part of the treaty is quoted in the article:
 * "...the said line shall ascend to the north along the channel called Portland Channel as far as the point of the continent where it strikes the 56th degree of north latitude; from this last-mentioned point, the line of demarcation shall follow the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast as far as the point of intersection of the 141st degree of west longitude."
 * To answer your question, the British never claimed that particular area, because it was always clearly part of Alaska. The red line indicating the British claim west from the head of the portland canal is at approximately 56 degrees, and accurately reflects the british claim. In reality, the head of the portland canal is about 6 miles south of the 56th parallel, which is why there's no trace of that line in the current border. Keep in mind that creating a map of these claims that is 100% accurate is pretty much impossible, because neither side surveyed a border before they settled this dispute. shaggy (talk) 05:43, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

consolation prize
The text states "Canada was, however, entitled to a consolation prize in obtaining a triangle of land called the Panhandle (the Tatshenshini-Alsek region of British Columbia)" When I look at the map I do not see any area that increases the Canadian claim. The T-A area itself appears to be smaller than the Canadian claim. Is it a consolation prize to not be as big a loser as we could have been? Could someone explain the given statement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.157.5.156 (talk) 01:30, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Not sure exactly what you mean.......I think the context is that the British, by insisting on Mount Fairweather and the inland part of the Tatshenshini-Alsek as British/Canadian territory, wound up ensuring that BC retained some of its rights in the region, vs the portion south of Wrangell were they were ignored.....the map also isn't fully correct re the US claim, though maybe reflects the official treat negotiation position.....by the Yanks referred to Whitehorse and Atlin as "Whitehorse, Alaska" and "Atlin, Alaska" so it would suggest that the blue line of the American claim here isn't placed far enough inland; same on the STikine, where there's a good 100 miles difference.Skookum1 (talk) 07:08, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Yukon Ports and Canadian use of same

 * ''After the United States bought Alaska in 1867 and British Columbia united with Canada in 1871, Canada requested a survey, but it was refused by the United States as too costly: the border area was very remote and sparsely-settled, and without economic or strategic interest at the time. In 1898 the national governments agreed on a compromise, but the government of British Columbia rejected it. U.S. President McKinley proposed a permanent lease of a port near Haines, but Canada rejected that compromise.

Missing in that paragraph is something about how in that time period the port and passes at the head of the Lynn Canal had already become the main way in and out of the Yukon, few though were the hardy souls who went there, including the Klondike's discovers; but at that time, as pending BC ever since 1871 and before assuming that, as per deals with the Russians, the accesses into the Interior, either by the Stikine and Taku or via these passes, were to be under British control and open for their use. I know there wasn't British/BC settlement at Skagway or Haines or Dyea, but what was going on there in the years in question? It should be understood from the British Columbian perspective - already having lost "Southern Columbia" and the San Juans, was pretty sensitive about losing even more land to the US because of a distant capital's indifference and diplomatic power-brokering (Ottawa was involved in this case, but so also was London who had also been a player in the Oregon and San Juan fiascos); it's a blip in Canadian history; I was struck by the US not wanting a survey originally because of costs; then pushing an extreme survey line when the time came. Needless to say, Canadian control of the Yukon Ports, which need definition in the article as a term and context, would have been beneficial to the Yukon economy, and perhap might have wound up in a Province of Yukon, or Yukon as a result of BC control of its ports might have become, as so often proposed, absorbed into BC (which Yukoners don't want, never have, never will from waht I understand). It also implies that coastal shipping and shipbuilding would have been concentrated in Victoria and Vancouver rather than around Puget Sound, as the US port-to-port laws established in order to deal with control of Klondike traffic (since in US eyes the ports were already American, de facto by population even if not de jure in terms of int'l law), and a different story to BC's marine economy is a good bet; that we've never exercised our treaty rights over Forts Stikine and Taku is a pity, not that shipping on the Stikine is a going concern these days or anything ;-). Anyway, original query/request is for a bit more on who was using/living at Haines/Skagway/Dyea during those years; something to fill in 1871 to 1898.... Skookum1 01:50, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * ''In 1898 the national governments agreed on a compromise,
 * What was the compromise? Maybe we should have a map of it?Skookum1 21:49, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Battle of the Porcupine River
Or some other nifty title, as there's more issues in question in this than just the conflict on Porcupine Creek. And I'd like to dig up the London Times or whatever Vancouver paper - the News-Advertiser? -no, in '99 I think it was The World (Vancouver newspaper) or certainly The Province, or the Victoria Colonist or Columbian (newspaper), to get the British/Canadian reportage of the same events. That there was actual conflict on the round and, as in the opening paragraph, a clash between the powers, fits with the Rooseveltian threat and also Britain's own erstwhile hard line; they should have known from their San Juans experience that arbitration would be a bummer. My only other personal source/reading on the conflict over customs stations in the passes is fro Pierre Berton and he gives a copletley different portrait. But again, I'd like to read the reportrage/propaganda for the other position here; I can see for example that for practicality customs stations in ountain areas are located at relatively habitable spots, which the cols of passes in general really aren't; especially in teh Coast Ranges. It was yes because of the boundary dispute the official presence was oved to what was already perceivedd - by the British - as their frontier; they had just set up at a civilized distance from it; ideally they viewed Skagway andHaines as their rightful ports but had never had agents of any kind there; their bad...gonna burn my porridge maybe back, enjoy the article. ....Skookum1 (talk) 05:05, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I had a think about this while I was on my walk; the following is for those who take the time to read the 1899 NY Times article (already linked above); the RCMP who ordered the move to the summit of the passes was Sergeant Sam Steele of wide repute; and it was on his own initiative, not Ottawa's or London's direct orders (rather, how he chose to implement those orders); it's interesting that this is the same sort of unilateral but unauthorized action by a single official that gave birth to the Mainland Colony of British Columbia, again to do with a gold rush. In the case of the Stikine if not the White/Chilkoot Passes I think the British stations above their anticipated boundary probably had to do with there being no Russian stations downriver or on the nearby coast at all; effective Russian occupancy was out in the Alexander Archipelago; there was no Russian co-respondent to Fort Stikine, and in the 1860s when the coast was still Russian the Canadians (in BC, especially among official ranks, British is equally true at the time) had no reason to anticipate an annexation (although it's true Governor Douglas did install a customs station and mining district/gold commissioner for the Stikine Territory - which he also unilaterally declared, come to think of it - directly to prevent an American takeover; again as wit hteh passes it seemed oree wise to on-the-ground staff choosing a spot to position it somewhere liveable; I'd have to see a period map of the Stikine boundary (siltation has moved the river and increased land area in Alaska) to figure it out; I'd guess that there was no readily habitable land right at the boundary, or where the boundary was supposed to be; no river bank, too much swamp etc.  Whether it's on a coastal river or in a snow/rain-bound pass, it's not teh same as a tollbooth in Ohio or Ontario.  Rather than fuss London followed suit in both BC and Stikine cases; in 1899 while it was Steele's "don't wait for orders" tactic that so outraged the Americans, the tellings in Berton and other Canadian renderings make it clear that the British/Canadian perception - equally held by Steele - is that if the Americans (i.e. those who didn't want to recognize British/Canadian officialdom, most likely to do with not relinquishing their sidearms never mind the high taxes; thousands of others passed through without conflict, remeber; the Times piece avoids saying that)...that if this particular bunch of Americans who were agitating for a ore inland frontier got hold of the passes, it would be impossible for the Yukon to be defended and the territory would be overwhelmed by Americans as had been Skagway and Haines; the Times article doesn't say that, either, does it?  Anyway all very interesting; I'm not good at condensing concisely soe of this stuff but tomorrow I'll try a one or two sentence/paragraph addition about on-the-ground conflict and rumours of it like the Battle of the Porcupine River, just a framework/stub for others to add to as more information turns up; I'll see if I can find London Times material and the eastern Canadian papers; I live about four buildings fro the Public Archives of Nova Scotia so I'll go see what the archival newspaper holdings are...and diplomatic journals/periodicals at Dalhousie's library, which I'm also just around the corner from; not that I like hanging out in libraries...but I'll see what I can find to have sources for both POVs.

US violation: Dixon Entrance
The removal of the Tarr Inlet and (ofr now) Portland Canala sections by User:van helsing I can deal with, but not the censorship of the Dixon Entrance matter. This is citable simply by looking at a comparison of NTS and USGS maps, with the latter showing US drilling leases in waters that aren't the property of the US. The Dixon Entrance page is a wikicite for this also, and lately I seem to recall various webrefs about it; it's a well-known diplomatic "dispute" between the US and Canada (meaning hta Ottawa keeps it on the backburner as leverage on other issues but it never gets resolved for fear of upsetting Frank Murkowski....). There might be some rationale-wording that needs changing in the removed text:
 * ''Although the treaty stipulates the north side of the Dixon Entrance, the United States has ignored this provision of the treaty and maintains the boundary is in the middle of the Dixon Entrance and has proceeded with drilling surveys and allocations in the area, which is believed to be oil-and-gas rich. Canadian maps show the treaty boundary, while American ones show a mid-channel boundary titled "Exclusive Economic Zone Boundary" with drilling leases in place, and on several occasions US Coast Guard and other official American vessels have, in violation of the treaty, allegedly arrested and impounded Canadian fishing vessels and other craft in the disputed waters. The line stipulated in the treaty is known as the A-B Line, being drawn from Points A and B (Cape Muzon at the southern tip of Dall Island, to the west of Prince of Wales Island to one of the Proctor Islands, at the opening of Tongass Passage. It remains an unresolved issue between the Canadian and American governments. The Canadian side believes the Hay-Herbert Treaty resolved the matter, whereas the American side believes it is still an open issue.

...but I doubt most people familiar with the boundary and its history would claim that this dispute does not exist. The US violated the treaty, period. That it might not be possible to find a Canadian diplomat or interntaional jurist to ffer a legal/diplomatic opninion is irrelevant. The sentences following the quoted section about the Portland Canal are why the particulars of the treaty in that area were among the thorniest of the dispute; the US wanted to block off Canadian access to known mineral resources and also one of the few routes from the Coast to teh Interior north of the Nass. Whatever; I don't have time to look this material up and it's unlikely to be in libraries in Halifax, where I am now.....I would have appreciated Van Helsing's vampire-hunting a bit more if he'd done some legwork BEFORE "enforcing" the unrefernced tag; i.e. had gone looking for refs/reasons why those cmoments were there. The A-B Line dispute is not going to go away simply because an uninformed Wikipedia editor didnt' like the look of its story.Skookum1 (talk) 12:53, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

"BCPOV" resource at last
I didn't think to look up Alexander Begg online before, though I'd seen his tome in the old bookstore/library shelves for years alongside Howay and Reid and Bancroft and Ormsby et al.....so I was delighted to find a selection of his writing, mostly concerning the North-West Territory and the Metis Rebellions, plus his one big opus on a general history of BC to date; but among thetm I found this:
 * Report relative to the Alaska Boundary Question, submitted to the Hon. J.H. Turner, Minister of Finance etc. etc. (sic), 15 August, 1896., Alexander Begg, Victoria, British Columbia: R. Wolfenden, 1896

Which turns out to be chockful of useful detail, even in its preface/introduction. The appendices or "annexusres" as he styles them include newspaper editorials, diplomatic papers (from both sides), treaty materials, discussion of Russo-Briitsh relations and intent, and lots more; in the intro there's tidbits of clues as to where else to look - the Canadian Hansard July 4, 1895 - he quotes from a speech by a BC Member of Parliament who he tactfully does not name (the Member made an ass of himself with bad history/geography of his home province, something we usual slag Easterners for) but who can be found out from Hansard of course, but it seems that US relations were debated on that day, and there may be other debates and speeches quotable here, to match the US-content bulk of the article....if only the Oregon Treaty had been treated in such a thorough fashion by him or another, alas no....there are also comemnts in his intro about the equanimity of Canadian and British press towards the debate, vs the outright hostility towards the British of American editorials. Begg was commissioned to write this for the Candian Ministry of Finance at the time, apparently also responsible for the dispute (maybe no Foreign Minister at the time...that would have been a job still for Westminster before Canadians took over diplomatic matters with the Statutes of WEstminter much later). Even the intro's an eye-opener, but the resources look fascinating....the intro has too much for me to try to condenses into a section; hopefully y'all will have a read and find places to add bits into the article; I'm very curious about what the article says about Clarence Strait and Portland Channel vs. Portland Canal now....have a read!Skookum1 (talk) 03:28, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Chapter XX of Begg's history of BC is entitled "Fur Sealing and the Alaska Dispute". Also looks promising....History of British Columbia from its earliest discovery to the present time is the page for the book's TOC and there may be other chapters of interest to other articles/Wikipedians there....enjoy.Skookum1 (talk) 04:01, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Begg - main points and different map
Just browsing these at present, but on this page of his Statement of Facts a very different British claim-line is shown from the one on the map currently on this article. Begg's main points of difference are that the original treaty (1825) specified Cape Chacon, not Cape Muzon, as the start of the boundary line, and that the terms Portland Channel and Portland Canal were deliberately confused by the US Secretary of State Bayard, with the meaning of Portland Channel in 1825 referring to Clarence Strait, not the Portland Canal which was unknown at the time; Etolin Island he notes as having originally been Duke of York Island, also. Begg wrote three treatises on this, most with all the same points, though successively in 1896, 1900 and 1902, all official reports with two (1896 and 1902) written to federal and provincial cabeint ministers, respectively. Another item in Begg that's passed over here and in other histories is the Ukase of 1821 which claimed to 51 degrees N and also involved the Bering Sea Arbitration. The Ukase looks to need its own article, as it also invovles the rights of the Russian Orthodox Church in the region. Anyway, the map clearly needs to be changed; the linked map gives a good idea by how much.Skookum1 (talk) 19:02, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 4 separate borders are shown on that map. As far as I can tell from my reading of that article, line 4 is the British line on the map I recreated (with line 2 being fairly close to it throughout), and line 3 corresponds to the American line on my map. I feel that the map approximately reflects the territories claimed by the British and American sides at the time of arbitration, at the very least, and this source supports that. I am more than willing to alter the caption to clarify this.
 * Also, here is a direct link to the image in question at the largest size available.
 * It would perhaps be interesting to add a third line to represent the maximum claim of British Columbia as shown on this map, however. I will post shortly with an updated version reflecting this. shaggy (talk) 19:22, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * And here it is. shaggy (talk) 19:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, considering that Begg was only a consultant/reportist, and even though his linked documents are addressed to and commissioned by cabinet ministers, this doesn't mean that these were the positions taken, especially by Ottawa and London who had other interests that the documentary particularity of Begg's analysis of the Ukase of 1821 and Bagot's and Canning's earlier positions. The green line might well be the maxiumum claim by the province, and Begg was close with those provincial interests, it seems (in order to have his report commissioned at all; politicians rarely order up anything that will disagree with them...); from what I gather from reading his accounts of things said elsewhere it seems the British were willing to deal on accepting the Portland Canal by the time the dispute came into full heat as a result of the Klondike, and Ottawa seems to have either been in the dark or looking the other way; I'll have to check into J.H. Hunter was, then-Ministerr of Finance, and where his position or use of theis report went.  Maybe there's more in the National Archives online, come to think of it....I can't see the map linked in Begg lately, though I saved it locally so I could play with the contrast later to see the lines I can't see.  I thought, from what I read, that it went up Clarence Strait/Duke of Clarence Sound/Portland Channel only to the 56th Parallel; maybe I misread that, gotta look up the USGS maps on the bodies of water talked about and figure it out.  56 degrees North is just about at the mouth of hte Unuk River, that's where I thought the land boundary was to commence.  Again, BC's position may have been even more extreme; during hte Crimean War, despite the no-messing-with-business arrangement between the Russian America Company and the HBC, Douglas urged his RN guests, post-Petropavlovsk retreat to Esquimalt, to seize the Panhandle (Douglas was always urging the RN to help expand BC under cover of war, as also re Puget Sound during hte Civil War); I vaguely recall something about Juneau being founded as a toehold on the continent in order to secure the claim - by the Russians or by Americans? - and I don't understand the langauge about Lynn Canal in Begg; I gahter Revillagigedo Island was in the region Begg lays out; it must be why he goes on about US-instigated name changes in that area.....anyway are you sure the green line is what Begg says?  I've seen it before, I know, thinking it was a BC position; maybe that's waht BEggt is outlining but I got the impression most of the archipelago north of 56 was to remain Russian.  Maybe the thing to do is a series of maps showing the Russo-British positions of 1821 and 1825 etc, then BC's and Canada's wants, and Begg's position if it's different, and then the UK position and the US position, and the ssettlement; maybe not necessary unilt a Ukase of 1821 article is in palce; a map for teh Anglo-Russian Convention showing the arrangements then, in comparison with now, might also be a good idea....Skookum1 (talk) 21:11, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The green line approximates line 1 on the map included in the article you directed me to. This is the line Begg is referring to in his interpretation of the treaty. shaggy (talk) 06:02, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Interesting.....because while, as you say, that map shows that as a claim-line, his text indicates that it would follow the mountain-summits from 56 North.....plus some other discrepancy as defined by him up around Lynn Canal and Cross Strait. Could be the line represents an extreme position not taking in the actual report's text....I'll re-read it in detail again I guess.  There's lots of issues relative to the article content that I'm gonna try and fit into the article.....all ine due time I guess.  Still, the red line on the map, going from Stewart-Hyder west along the 56th, doesn't seem right either; are you sure the intent of that wasn't the Portland Channel (Clarence Strait) to the 56th Parallel?  Britain, at least under Canning's foreign ministry, wanted both sides of the Portland Canal, at least when in discussions with the Russians.  This may not have ben the British positino later on, but it was in 1825 and after.....Skookum1 (talk) 14:00, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

[undent]I just had a closeup look and it looks as though that one line up the lower part of Clarence Strait splits west of Revillagigedo, with one version of it going up Behm Canal....and joining the redline on your map at its western end (the one the caption of the map says Line 4), the one going west from Stewart to the Behm Canal, is the claim as pressed by British Columbia (not London or Ottawa necessarily) in 1900 (190x anyway, kidna smudgy) so maybe BC had amended the claim by then....Line 4 is as shown on a map publ. in the Edinburgh Review in 1900. Line 1 is the line according to "based on the treaty" [by] "experts" (? - smudgy again); interesting that Line 2 goes further inland than the Line 4 from Edinburgh; the surrender of Revillagigedo and the continentnal mass containing the Adam Mountains weste of teh Portland Canal and south of the Unuk is implicit in the map; I'll have to re-read Begg's text to see if he even mentions this line, I didn't notice it previously. I do note that 4 gives a bit more of the Lynn Canal to the US than line 2 does; I think the intent there was to give the US one potential port (Dyea) while keeping Skagway and Haines ("the Yukon Ports").....if things had been settled that way, the catfight between Ottawa and Victoria over whether or not these ports were BC's or should be part of the Yukon Territory would have been fun to watch....Skookum1 (talk) 18:22, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Note: Caption still needs tweaking - the green line is Begg's analysis of what Canning/Bagot though they'd agreed to; Line 2 on the map from Begg is different and is supposed to be BC's line of claim, as of a certain date anyway; the Red Line/4 is maybe the British position but from Begg it only says "published in the Edinburgh Review, 1900......Skookum1 (talk) 18:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, I just did some digging and found the original map that I used as a source. I think it might be useful to try and find some documentation from the actual arbitration, and see if there are any maps included which would shed some light on this. shaggy (talk) 00:11, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Canadian Nat'l Archives resources
The holdings list looks interesting - here but only some is available online; thosse first listings look to be the official Canadian position (NB. distinct from London's and Victoria's). Posting this here in case any eager beaver or legal eagle out there has the resources to order copies.....Skookum1 (talk) 16:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Can you post that other map for me so I can see it - do you have an ftp space maybe? Presumably non-wikiable.  I looked to see what BC Archives has but nothing online, although the summary of some is interesting to read (the secret corresopndence from the Colonial Office item, for instance.  I'll keep looking, and try to decipher Begg's geography when I get a chance; there's a passage in Howay which I might plunk wholesale into the article.....Skookum1 (talk) 02:56, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Huh, I'll have to look closer for the date on that map I guess; as Begg only mentions the redline in relation to the Edinburgh Review edition of 1900 (1899/8?) so maybe this is after that came into print. For purposes of discussion, but not the article as it's a coinage, I'm going to refer to the line claimed by BC and expounded in Begg's various publications as the Bagot-Canning Line - the greenline on your other map, claimed by BC to represent the local meaning/interpretation of the treaty's wording/intent; for whatever reason both Ottawa and London looked the other way on BC's protestations - too much at stake elsewhere in their mutual spheres of competition and with other empires/places to risk too hard of a line here, as also was the case with the Columbia/Oregon and San Juans disputes (in which a concessional British opening position was met with contempt by the Americans, and that's not a POV statement but rather an account of one, in Begg). I'm going to start a sandbox to work up a "Origins of the dispute" or "Background to the dispute" (starting with the Ukases of 1799 and 1871 on the Russian side and Cook's and Vancouver's voyages/claims on the British, plus also of course mention of the pre-Napoleonic Spanish interests in the area). The next section would be on the Hudson's Bay lease (1838 I think) and associated forts (Taku/Durham, Stikine/San Dionisio (and apparently also Tongas, which I've come across mention of...), then in the section from the Alaska Purchase to the Klondike Gold Rush (which precipitated the confrontation and settlement) addition of the details from Begg about Buchanan's coinage of the meaning of "Portland Channel" and BC's ongoing protestations/appeals to Ottawa and London for a settlement to be obtained, then Begg's description of hte BC point of view that "those parts of British Columbia lost in the settlement", i.e. east/northeast of the Bagot-Canning Line, had been subject to squatting by American settlers and entrepreneurs and military forces and should not have been so easily tolerated; it would be synthesis to say outright on the article, but I'll say it here, that the situation was similar to that which had prevailed in California and Hawaii and elsewhere; an American migration backed by a coup of legalities - the legality in this case being hte meaning of the boundary as on the one hand perceived by the BC government (if not ultimately by the imperial Crown) vs the one taken as the meaning by the Americans as the meaning of the Russian tenure they had bought....in this case, unlike Hawaii and California, the insurrection was backed up by the existence of the sale, and the American preoccupation with denying and denouncing American British claims as malevolent and aggressive (Begg says this, I'm only recounting it here but in retrospect....). Then in the section on the negotiations I'll put in mentions (only) of BC's submissions to the federal government and London, the Premier's address and I have to find out more about the role/position of hte Finance Minister whom Begg appealed to.....that's a rundown of some fairly complex issues I have to boil down into readable and NPOV form before adding them; once done the map showing hte Green Line/Bagot-Canning Line can be moved ot the main page; I may come up with an interim short-form mention of hte line so the map can be adjusted. Other maps showing British activity and the lease and so on come to mind also....Skookum1 (talk) 19:11, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Harrassment of Canadians/ British subjects cite
There are other passages in Begg's books, including news articles and editorials from various papers, which talk about such incidents; in teh paragraph cited (at the top of that page) he alludes to the establishment of customs houses to intercept Britons en route to the Stikine Territory (British) at Tongas and Mary Islands, and the references to "Skaguay" [sic] and Porcupine are in ref to the imposition of US authority over Britons in areas already claimed/presume to be part of BC (and British, i.e. HBC, since 1825...), although in the Porcupine's case he's talking about he Battle of the Porcupine above. Actual dispossession or intimidation fo British /Canadian settlers on the mainland/islands east of the proper Portland Channel (Clarence Strait) is also an issue elsewhere in Begg, and also in other tidbits I've seen here and there; likewise the establishment of canneries drawing on resources that should have been run by British interests is in teh same ffect of "disallowing property", or rather pre-empting it; the conversion of Fort Stikine into a US military base, given that that island (Duke of York Island, now Etolin Island) was also perceived (by BC) as being part of British territory. There's more in Begg overall that I just haven't had time to add to the article; a bit too complex to condense; and the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1825 has many aspects that have to be written up, and the Ukase of 1821 (and the Ukase of 1799) to even begin putting forward the British Columbian position and BC's frustration with latter-era re-interpretations/distortions of the 1825 treaty; another reassignment of treaty geography was t he shift of the start-point from Cape Chacon to Cape Muzon, without which Begg says BC should have had Dall Island (among others). "There are claims that....etc" is rather a POV wording, given that American authority in the disputed area was imposed by a combination of occupation by armed forces and mass immigration by squatters", as the BC government styled them. the Victoria Colonist article cited by Begg in one of the books insinuates - without doing so - that the transference of the meaning of Portland Channel to Portland Canal, and the confusion of the two names, was done only upon the American purchase of the Russian claims; he also points out a key clause missing in the deed of sale that was present in the Treaty of 1825.  And taht's just for starters........from a BC point of view, this was a land grab worse than that of the Oregon Territory and similar to the seizure of California and Hawaii...This article can not be put forward for Featured ARticle or Good Article status until all this is included, and more (similarly with the Oregon boundary article, and the San Juan...). It's important for all this to be here; howevermuch inconvenient to today's political realities/predilections. Ottawa still doesn't care, Victoria's long learned not to......Skookum1 (talk) 05:38, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

That red line
I just found a passage in Begg which talks about that line, as appearing without explanation in an extensive article in the Edinburgh Review; he seems surprised by its emergence; it seems to hvae been attempt to make sense of the terms of the treaty specifying a mainland land-fall of the boundary at the 56th Parallel while still mollifying the Ameircan claims to the Portland Canal.....complicated, you'd have to read Begg to get it all; but he, again, doesn't understand why the line was published as it wasn't the British position, eiether ass defined by Bagot and Canning in 1824-25 or in the later capitulations to American reinterpretations....it's only, it seems, that one map. His comments about CPR and Dominion maps are extensive, but you'll hve to read the whole thing to find all of them.....Skookum1 (talk) 05:47, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Info on HBC lease 1839
Hi; anyone interested in background might want to read this and browse the document linked/ref'd there.Skookum1 (talk) 23:30, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

"Atlin, Alaska"
See Talk:Atlin District and follow the storyline indicated by the New York Times headlines assembled there; I'll be adding a section to this article on 'disputed areas" and/or "scenes of conflict" or some such; early on the NYT referred to Atlin and its region as part of BC; by 1900 it was saying "Atlin, Alaska"...this, the Bennett Lake area, Porcupine River/Lower Stikine and Salmon River/Bear River were all nexes of the dispute on-the-ground; somewhere also Pyramid Harbour, one of the "Yukon Ports" is specifically mentioned, also....Skookum1 (talk) 04:00, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
 * LOL if an article on it exists, I gather it woudl now be written in American spelling - Pyramid Harbor - wouldn't it?Skookum1 (talk) 04:00, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Rename?
Just thought I would point out that there may be a problem with the article's title. This article primarly talks about the 1821-1903 boundary dispute between Canada and the United States. But there have been more recent boundary disputes since this one began. A notable and ongoing example is the Dixon Entrance boundary between the Alaska Panhandle and the Queen Charlotte Islands. This can also be considered an Alaska boundary dispute. Thus, the current title is conflicting between these two boundary disputes. I suggest this article should be renamed to flow with the 1821-1903 dispute. Also, the article currently states that the 1821-1903 boundary dispute was a territorial dispute between the United States and Canada (then a British Dominion with its foreign affairs controlled from London), and at a subnational level between District of Alaska on the U.S. side and British Columbia on the Canadian side. From looking at the map, the southwesternmost portion of Yukon was associated with the dispute as well but it does not mention anything about it. It would be nice if these issues could be solved. BT (talk) 22:10, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * In 1821, neither Canada nor the United States was involved (the 1825 treaty was between the Russian and British empires). Anyway, this was the big one -- the other territorial controversies are pretty much minor touch-ups to the 1903 settlement... AnonMoos (talk) 08:54, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I know that. There is also a dispute at the Beaufort Sea, which seems to be larger. BT (talk) 23:05, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Yukon was directly under the administration of the federal government, no provincial type regime was involved; and British Columbia even as a province was largely excluded from the debate; much to its chagrin. As for comments on specific areas of the dispute, this is a subject for expansion of this article, which mostly deals with US politics about the debate at this point, and little in the way of the British equivalent or British POV; I've tried to address that but seem to always get caught up in Wikipedia having to put out fires to do with changes of terminology for categories and titles, etc. and other wonderfully useful things that ge3t in teh way of actual content enhancement.  As for your issue that the Dixon Entrance and Beaufort Sea disputes should be part of this title, no, the "most common use" of the name "Alaska Boundary Dispute" refers to the essential dispute that ran 1825-1903; American and Canadian journalistic sources tend to refer only to 1891-1903 but as you can read in the link in the next section even the US-CAnada dispute, which succeeded the ongoing British-Russian one, extends right back to the 1870s, relating to US efforts to violate the provisions of the 1825 treaty in order to block British access to British territory inland, and profit from the resulting trans-shipment trade.  The Dixon Entrance dispute plays into an eventual article on the Salmon War of the 1990s, which also had to do with an old American grievance/ambition that the Inside Passage should be an international waterway (except in their waters...only in ours).Skookum1 (talk) 18:36, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No need to rename it--historians from all countries call THIS episode the Alaska Boundary dispute, and they write books and articles about it under that title. (Proof: see bibliography items by Carroll, ("Alaska Boundary Settlement"); Gibson, ("The Alaskan Boundary Dispute"); Munro, ("the Alaska Boundary Decision"); Penlington, ("The Alaska Boundary Dispute"); and The Canadian Encyclopedia: "Alaska Boundary Dispute".)  Rjensen (talk) 21:29, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Detailed source on British politics/position
I've already included Begg's histories of the background to the dispute, but he is admittedly a POV source, having been hired by the British Columbia government to advance that province's position, namely being that shared by Trutch that the "Portland Channel" of the treaty is not the Portland Canal, but the Chatham Strait et al. and that the land boundary only began at 56-13, i.e. such that the mouth of the Stikine and all mainland south of it, and adjoining islands, was in fact in British territory. Howay & Scholefield discuss this and detail the origins of that argument (Trutch seems to have been the first in the colonial era to mention it; Simpson had had to deal with it in 1834-1839 after the Russians similarly interfered in British access to the STikine). The book linked here has details of teh various proposals and some of the hostile US resolutions towards the British, and material from it, once there's time to add it to this article, will help balance the focus on USPOV and US content here; I was hoping they would have some details on the disputes and violence in the Atlin District, on the STikine, and around Skagway, but no - though they do give details of teh harrassment of marine traffic and US measures to fortify/defend the area between the Stikine and Dixon Entrance; well worth a read. It also details out the selection and composition of the tribunal and the US betrayal of the terms of reference of that tribunal to appoint non-partisan jurists (the US did exactly the opposite).Skookum1 (talk) 18:36, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * British Columbia from the earliest times to the present, Vol 2, Chapter XXXI - Alaska Boundary Dispute, E.O.S. Scholefield & Frederic William Howay, S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., Vancouver, British Columbia, 1914

Angry Canadians
RE this, there's a short passage in the chapter from Scholefield & Howay I just added, towards its end, you could use to cite that; I don't have the patience to read it again this morning (as i did "through" this morning over coffee). Not sure that resentment context belongs in the lede though.....Skookum1 (talk) 21:21, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * thanks for that citation, which I had not seen. I think the lead is accurate, and I provided additional support with this addition: Historian F.W. Gibson concluded that Canadians vented their anger less upon the United States and "to a greater degree upon Great Britain for having offered such feeble resistance to American aggressiveness.  The circumstances surrounding the settlement of the dispute produced serious dissatisfaction with Canada's position in the British Empire." [Gibson (1943) at notes 60-61]. Rjensen (talk) 23:46, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Broader geopolitical significance
According to chapter 5 of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy, this was one of several concessions that the U.K. offered to the U.S. (the others being on fisheries and the Panama Canal) as part of a general policy of reducing colonial frictions (including the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902), which cleared the decks for diplomatic action in Europe, ultimately leading to the U.K.-France "Entente Cordiale" of 1904... AnonMoos (talk) 16:44, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

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Map needs amending
The line shown as the British position is incorrect; that was only a map come up with by the editor of the Edinburgh Review, based on his [confused] interpretation of the wording of the Anglo-Russian treaty that established Cape Muzon/54-40 as the latitudinal boundary, but "Clarence Channel" as being the northward marine boundary from there; the confusion arising from the mistaken use of the Portland Canal as the route of the boundary even though that's eastward from Cape Muzon. The notes made by Bagot and Canning detail out what the wording actually meant, as this concluding summary in Begg's Review of the Alaska Boundary Question lays out, mentioning Etolin Island and more - indicating Clarence Strait as it's called today; although maps were very detailed, thanks to Captain Vancouver (who made claim over the whole archipelago all the way to Cross Sound and Icy Strait five years before Tsar Paul declared Russian America), what's Duke of York Island in those notes is I think Wrangell Island, for example.

Where a line drawn northward along the 132nd line of longitude from Cape Muzon actually hits the mainland is shy of 56 degrees north and is located southeast of Etolin Island; this is the intersection of the 56th parallel and 132nd meridian. So, a strict interpretation of the treaty without deviation was not observed; and no map published of the treaty's result and intent.... Begg was hired by the Turner government to assert BC's case, but 1898-1903 were years of political turmoil in British Columbia, and its case ignored and misunderstood by London and Ottawa - and misrepresented by the editor of the Edinburgh Review. Britain's actual position more resembled today's boundary and went overland from Stewart up the divide of the Boundary Ranges to the Stikine, and originally included the Yukon Ports though they quickly yielded on that given American occupation of same. The Review of the Alaska Boundary Question linked above includes discussions of the seizure of Wales and Pearse Islands and also the Porcupine River battles near Klukwan.... and details the story of Atlin, which for a while no one was sure if it was 60 leagues from the sea or not (it's not). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.55.69.14 (talk) 03:01, 17 December 2017 (UTC)