Canadian Senator Is Angry…wants government action over US tour operator claiming island is on ‘the Maine Coast’

A Canadian senator is calling on the federal government to more firmly assert Canada’s claim over Machias Seal Island, a tiny uninhabited island that remains the only land territory disputed between Canada and the United States. The issue has drawn renewed attention after New Brunswick Senator Jim Quinn objected to an American tour company’s description of the island as part of the “Maine Coast,” according to the BBC.

Machias Seal Island lies in a maritime “grey zone” between Maine and New Brunswick. While officially uninhabited, it supports thousands of puffins and is staffed seasonally by members of the Canadian Coast Guard, who maintain a lighthouse first built by the British in 1832. Lobster fishing in the surrounding waters is carried out by both Canadian and American fishers and has occasionally led to tensions.

The island is an important seabird sanctuary, and its only regular visitors are tourists brought in by two licensed operators: Canada’s SeaWatch Tours and the U.S.-based Bold Coast Charter Company. On its website, the American company describes the island as home to the “largest puffin colony on the Maine Coast” and says its tours are authorized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Quinn has urged Ottawa to revoke the company’s permit unless it acknowledges that the island is Canadian, the Telegraph-Journal reports.

Quinn has also questioned why Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which administers the island, allows an American company to market it as part of Maine and why that firm appears on a Canadian government website. The United States considers Machias Seal Island to be American territory, the BBC notes, but Quinn argues that Canada must be more assertive in defending its sovereignty.

“I’m angry,” Quinn told the Telegraph-Journal. “We’ve got the president of the United States attacking our economy, suggesting we become the 51st state, and talking about taking over different parts of the world, while Maine is advertising as if Machias Seal Island belongs to them.” Quinn, who visited the island while working as a teenage deckhand on a Canadian Coast Guard vessel, said the presence of the only fully staffed lighthouse in Atlantic Canada underscores the importance of maintaining Canada’s claim.

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