History
British claims on the islands were based on the explorations in the 1570s by Martin Frobisher. Canadian sovereignty, originally (1870–80) only over island portions that drained into Foxe Basin, Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait, over all of them was not established until the 1880 transfer by Britain to Canada of the remaining islands; the District of Franklin was established in 1895, which comprised almost all of the archipelago; the district was dissolved upon the creation of Nunavut in 1999. Canada claims all the waterways of the Northwestern Passages as Canadian Internal Waters; however the United States and most other maritime countries view these as international waters. Disagreement over the passages' status has raised Canadian concerns about environmental enforcement, national security, and general sovereignty. Hans Island, in the Nares Strait east of Ellesmere Island, is a territory currently contested between Canada and Denmark.
Read more about this topic: Canadian Arctic Archipelago
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“The whole history of civilisation is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“There is a history in all men’s lives,
Figuring the natures of the times deceased,
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life.”
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)