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Blue is the border as claimed by the United States, Red is the border claimed by Canada and the United Kingdom. Yellow shows the current border, after arbitration.

The Alaska Boundary Dispute was a territorial dispute between the United States of America and Canada (then a British Dominion with its foreign affairs controlled from London), and at a subnational level between the territory of Alaska on the U.S. side and British Columbia and the Yukon on the Canadian side. It was resolved by arbitration in 1903.

In 1825 Russia and Britain signed a treaty to define the borders of their respective colonial possessions. Part of the wording of the treaty was:

"...the said line shall ascend to the north along the channel called Portland Channel as far as the point of the continent where it strikes the 56th degree of north latitude; from this last-mentioned point, the line of demarcation shall follow the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast as far as the point of intersection of the 141st degree of west longitude."

The rather vague phrase "the mountains parallel to the coast" was further qualified thus:

"Whenever the summit of the mountains shall be at a distance of more than ten marine leagues from the ocean, the limit shall be formed by a line parallel to the winding of the coast, and which shall never exceed the distance of ten marine leagues therefrom."

This part of the treaty language was really an agreement on general principles for establishing a boundary in the area in the future, rather than any exact demarcated line.

After the United States bought Alaska in 1867 and British Columbia united with Canada in 1871, Canada requested a survey, but it was refused by the United States as too costly: the border area was very remote and sparsely-settled, and without economic or strategic interest at the time. In 1898 the national governments agreed on a compromise, but the government of British Columbia rejected it. U.S. President McKinley proposed a permanent lease of a port near Haines, but Canada rejected that compromise.

Around that time, the Klondike Gold Rush enormously increased the population of the general area, which reached 30,000, composed largely of Americans.

This increased the importance of the region and the desirability of fixing an exact boundary. There are claims that Canadian citizens were harassed by the U.S. as a deterrent to making any land claims. Finally, in 1903, the Hay/Herbert treaty entrusted the decision to an arbitration by a mixed tribunal of six members, three American and three Canadian/British.

The main legal points at issue were which coastal range should be chosen as the basis of the boundary and whether the "ten marine leagues" (or 30 nautical miles) should be measured from the heads of the fjords or from a baseline which would cut across the mouths of the fjords.

The British arbitration board member Lord Alverstone sided with the United States position on these basic issues — though the final agreed demarcation line fell significantly short of the maximal U.S. claim (it was a compromise falling roughly between the maximal U.S. and maximal British/Canadian claim). Canada was, however, entitled to a consolation prize in obtaining a triangle of land called the Panhandle (the Tatshenshini-Alsek region of British Columbia), nearly enclaved on the north of the coastal zone awarded to Alaska.

Although the Canadian delegates had been out-manoeuvered by Lord Alverstone, in protest the Canadian judges refused to sign the award, issued 20 October 1903, and violent anti-British feeling erupted in Canada. The result was a surge in Canadian nationalism separate from an Imperial identity. (Munro 1965)

Irritated at the decision, Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier asserted that Canada's lack of treaty-making power made it difficult to maintain its rights internationally, but he took no immediate action and the situation remained essentially unchanged until Canada became a separate signatory at the Treaty of Versailles and still later when the government of William Lyon Mackenzie King took independent charge of foreign policy beginning in 1921. In the period immediately after the dispute, Canadian anger gradually subsided, although suspicions of the U.S. provoked by the award may have contributed to Canada's rejection of free trade in the 1911 "reciprocity election". Nevertheless, the Alaska settlement promoted better understanding between the U.S. and Britain that worked to Canada's advantage in World War I.

Although the treaty stipulates the north side of the Dixon Entrance, the United States has ignored this provision of the treaty and maintains the boundary is in the middle of the Dixon Entrance and has proceeded with drilling surveys and allocations in the area, which is believed to be oil-and-gas rich. Canadian maps show the treaty boundary, while American ones show a mid-channel boundary titled "Exclusive Economic Zone Boundary", with drilling leases in place, and on several occasions US Coast Guard and other official American vessels have, in violation of the treaty, arrested and impounded Canadian fishing vessels and other craft in the disputed waters. The line stipulated in the treaty is known as the A-B Line, being drawn from Points A and B (Cape Muzon at the southern tip of Dall Island, to the west of Prince of Wales Island to one of the Proctor Islands, at the opening of Tongass Passage. It remains an unresolved issue between the Canadian and American governments (the Canadian position is that it was resolved in 1903, with the Alaska Treaty). Also at dispute is the Portland Canal, where the treaty stipulates the west bank of the canal but the American government ever since has claimed the middle of the channel. Unlike the A-B Line, the Portland Canal issue does not involve potential oil and gas reserves, nor fishing rights. The Portland Canal's waters were to be exlcusively Canadian because of strategic concerns over access to the towns at the head of it, and adjacent Observatory Inlet.

• Carroll, F. M. "Robert Lansing and the Alaska Boundary Settlement." International History Review 1987 9(2): 271-290. Issn: 0707-5332
• Kohn, Edward P. This Kindred People: Canadian-American Relations and the Anglo-Saxon Idea, 1895-1903 (2005)
• Munro, John A. "English-Canadianism and the Demand for Canadian Autonomy: Ontario's Response to the Alaska Boundary Decision, 1903." Ontario History 1965 57(4): 189-203. Issn: 0030-2953
• Penlington, Norman. The Alaska Boundary Dispute: A Critical Reappraisal. McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1972. 120 pp.

• The Canadian Encyclopedia: Alaska Boundary Dispute

• List of areas disputed by the United States and Canada
• Foreign relations of Canada