Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk, left, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, centre, and Defence Minister Peter MacKay approach the submarine HMCS Corner Brook in Frobisher Bay near Iqaluit on Aug. 19, as part of Operation Nanook. (Andy Clark/Reuters)

Two Arctic observers say concerns in recent years that Canada's Arctic could face a military threat are overblown, as Canada's chief of defence staff quietly met with his Danish counterpart last week to discuss military co-operation.

The unannounced meeting between Gen. Walter Natynczyk and Danish Admiral Tim Sloth Jorgensen took place in Nunavut over several days and was only made public in a Danish news release.

"If you look around the world, boundaries and resource matters have made many wars in recent years in different places of the Earth," Jorgensen told CBC News in an interview Tuesday.

"I think that if we start co-operation now, we might stand in [a] much better position to avoid these things up here."

Jorgensen said relations are currently good among all five countries that border the Arctic Ocean: Denmark via Greenland, Canada, the United States, Russia and Norway.

But with those nations working on extending their sovereignty over more parts of the Arctic seabed, and with an increase in marine shipping through Arctic waters, Jorgensen said he wants to ensure relations remain cordial.

Canada quiet on visit

The federal government has been silent on the Danish admiral's visit, which included stops in Iqaluit and at Canada's most northern military outpost, Canadian Forces Station Alert.

"They've met in the past," Maj. Cindy Tessier, a spokesperson for Natynczyk, told The Canadian Press. "The CDS [chief of defence staff] has so many counterparts. There was no intent not to be public with this."

But Rob Huebert, an Arctic sovereignty expert with the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary, said the Danish admiral's trip marked the first time a senior foreign military figure had visited Canada's Arctic.

The meeting took place as the military was winding down Operation Nanook, Canada's annual sovereignty and emergency preparedness exercise in the eastern Arctic, which ran from Aug. 6-28 in the Iqaluit area.

Huebert questioned whether the tour was kept low-key to avoid diverting attention from Prime Minister Stephen Harper's northern tour, which he embarked on in part to observe Operation Nanook and showcase Canada's military might in the Arctic.

Collaboration on various fronts

Tessier said the largely classified discussions were broad, touching on Arctic co-operation and the war in Afghanistan, where Denmark has 700 soldiers operating with the British in Helmand province.

Jorgensen, who plans to visit all five Arctic nations, said he started with Canada because he believes Denmark and Canada share the same views on a number of military-related issues, including Afghanistan.

Canada and Denmark have recently discussed ways to further collaborate in the Arctic, from responding to plane crashes and other emergencies to dealing with illegal shipping incidents in increasingly ice-free Arctic waters.

Such issues should be of bigger concern to Canada than a military threat, said Suzanne Lalonde, a law professor at the University of Montreal.

"If it came to military might and defending our external sovereignty because some foreign state fleet wanted to claim it or insist on their navigational rights, I think we're out of luck," Lalonde told CBC News in an interview.

"I think Canada has to be prepared for lesser but problematic threats."

Whitney Lackenbauer — a history professor at St. Jerome's University, part of Ontario's University of Waterloo — said concerns about outside threats to Canadian sovereignty and security in the Arctic are overblown, especially when it comes to Russian threats.

Lackenbauer said he believes Canadians are insecure that Russia has capabilities Canada does not have.

"At the end of the day, are we ever going to win in a scenario where force of arms determines boundaries? Certainly not," he said.

"We're never going to be an Arctic superpower in the military realm, with our neighbours including Russia and the United States."

Should tension rise between Canada and other nations on Arctic issues, Lackenbauer said Canada will have to sit down and negotiate diplomatic solutions rather than resort to military might.

No mention of Hans Island dispute

After looking at Canadian military installations with Jorgensen last week, Natynczyk went to Greenland, where there was a meeting with the chairman of the Danish territory's home-rule government, Denmark's military said in the release.

Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark.

Tessier said there was no mention of the diplomatic dispute over Hans Island.

The Danes stirred political controversy in 2005 by landing a military expedition on the uninhabited, desolate 1.3-square-kilometre piece of rock in the strait that separates Ellesmere Island from northern Greenland.

The disagreement focused the Canadian public's attention on the far North and was the catalyst for Harper's efforts to stake the Canadian flag more firmly into the Arctic tundra.

With files from The Canadian Press