THE race for sovereignty over the Arctic first grabbed the world’s attention in 2007, when a Russian submarine planted a titanium flag on the ocean floor at the North Pole. Yet according to a poll of the eight Arctic countries released last month, the most assertive nation in the region when it comes to ownership of resources and border issues is Canada. Slightly over 40% of Canadian respondents said their government “should pursue a firm line in defending its sections of the Arctic”. The only other countries that exceeded 10% were Iceland (36%) and Russia (34%). Similarly, about 10% of Canadians said the area should be made an international territory comparable to Antarctica, the lowest figure in the survey. In contrast, 48% of Swedes supported that idea. “We seemed to have morphed a bit,” says Frank Graves, a pollster in Ottawa whose company, EKOS Research Associates, co-ordinated the research project. “It’s my way or the highway on many issues.”

The first explanation for this hard line is Canadians’ perennial antipathy towards Americans: the superpower to the south can’t be allowed to get too greedy in the north. Whereas the United States was the only country to choose Canada as its preferred partner for dealing with Arctic issues, Canadians—whom the report’s authors called “rather churlish”—rated the Americans on the same level as Russians. “We may well ask who is the American now?”, they noted.

A more recent cause is the militant posture taken by Stephen Harper, the Conservative prime minister. During his 2005-06 campaign, he promised to build heavily armed icebreakers and a network of underwater listening posts. Following his victory, he used his first news conference to warn the world that “the Canadian government will defend our sovereignty” over the Northwest Passage. In office, he has travelled north every year to observe military exercises, where he makes sure to appear in carefully staged photos on naval frigates and submarines, with the obligatory icebergs in the background. Part of his government’s rationale for its controversial C$16 billion ($16.1 billion) purchase of F-35 fighter jets is that they are needed to fend off Russian flights, which have not, but just might, enter Canadian airspace.

This bellicose rhetoric may have helped shore up support for Mr Harper’s minority government. But it does not bode well for resolving problems that will inevitably arise as the polar icecap recedes, opening the region to more shipping and resource exploration. Canada has a dispute with Denmark over ownership of barren Hans Island, which separates its Ellesmere Island from Greenland; one with the United States over the maritime boundary extending into Beaufort Sea from the border between the Yukon Territory and Alaska; and one with just about every country but China over whether the Northwest Passage is an international strait or sovereign Canadian waters. Further potential battles could be brewing regarding the continental shelf and the resources that lie beneath the Arctic Ocean.

There was some common ground to be found among the Arctic countries, however. China has applied for observer status at the Arctic Council. But every country in the poll save Russia listed China as their least preferred partner when it comes to the Arctic. Russia reserved top spot in the unpopularity stakes for its old Cold War adversary, the United States.