evidence: Hans Island (Tartupaluk) looking toward the west with Ellesmere Island in the background. The newly established international border runs approximately from the top left to the lower right, with Denmark/Greenland on the left and Canada on the right. Photo: Toubletap [...] The dispute over Hans Island began about 50 years ago when Canada and Denmark initiated negotiations to demarcate a 1,450-nm-long continental shelf boundary between Canada and Greenland without reaching an agreement concerning the title over Hans Island which lies midway between the two States. Thus, the 1973 Delimitation Agreement deliberately left without a determined boundary the area between the geodetic points 122 and 123 where Hans Island is located. The decades following the 1973 delimitation treaty triggered a rather political pseudo-confrontation regarding sovereignty over the island,4) with Canada and Denmark provoking each other by planting flags on the island, pursuing annual military visits, and exchanging bottles of whiskey and schnapps.5) Within these political debates, the Danish side often invoked the historical Inughuit presence on the island, mainly through the Danish Minister for Greenland, a post which was laid down in 1987.6) Similar arguments have been also echoed by the Canadian side, which often attributes Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic to the historical Inuit use and occupancy of the entire Canadian archipelago.7)