March-April 2020
The Boundary Dispute When the United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire in 1867, one of the best real estate deals in history was sealed, but the U.S. government also inherited a few headaches, not the least of which was a contentious disagreement over the geographic boundaries between the southeastern part of the territory of Alaska and the province of British Columbia, which had recently joined the newly formed Canadian Confederation, whose foreign affairs were still under British authority.
In 1825 the Russian Empire and Great Britain had signed The Convention Concerning the Limits of Their Respective Possessions on the Northwest Coast of America and the Navigation of the Pacific Ocean, better known as The Treaty of Saint Petersburg of 1825. Throughout the period of Russian colonization, from the 1780s to the United States’ purchase of the territory, the southeastern border of Russian America—known today as the Alaska Panhandle—was never firmly established, and when the U. S. bought Alaska the boundary terms were still ambiguous. It would take an international tribunal to resolve the dispute almost forty years later, in 1903.
In his review of a book by Norman Penlington, The Alaska Boundary Dispute: A Critical Reappraisal (MvGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd., 1972), in the Summer, 1974 issue of Alaska Journal, the noted historian and University of Alaska emeritus professor Claus-M Naske wrote about the 1825 treaty and noted, “Trouble quickly arose however, over the clause which related to the boundary between Portland Canal and Mount Saint Elias. Drawn by diplomats who were entirely ignorant of the geography of the region, Russia interpreted the agreement of 1825 in an 1826 map which showed the boundary lines ten leagues distant from the coast until it reached the 141st meridian, then following that line. In 1827 Russian issued the same map
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