Hands off Hans

Holy fuss up about Hans Island. Is it Danish? Is it Canadian? Is it a tiny, uninhabited island in the middle of the Arctic?

Do I care? Do you care?

People are getting pretty pissed about Hans. The Danes were hot and bothered when our Defence Minister Bill Graham set foot on the island a few weeks ago without giving the Danish government advance notice of his visit.

Now the Danes are moving a Navy ship towards Hans.

"The journey is part of the routine tasks that we do and that is to inspect Danish waters and uphold Danish sovereignty,'' navy spokesman Alex Jensen said. "If we manage to reach the island, we will hoist a new Danish flag. We're trying to change the flags as often as possible because they are quickly torn apart by the strong winds,'' Jensen said by telephone from the Danish navy base on Greenland's west coast.

"As it looks now, the ice situation may not allow us to reach the island. But we will try to get as far north as possible,'' he said. Danish navy ships have only been able to visit the island three times since 1988 because of the thick Arctic ice around it.

Now the argument has been Googlized too! With both governments taking out ads claiming to own the island.

Maybe we should move our guys there to hoist our flag too! Let's start a war over Hans!
Hell, folks have done it over oil...how about a big rock? Then we can finally restart Canada's "rock people" industry, a lucrative business in the 80's!

Dave