The race to carve up the Arctic's increasingly exposed riches got hotter as Norway and Russia divvied up an oil-rich zone off their northern coasts, leaving Canada as the only country with a share of both the remaining unresolved boundary disputes.

As nations race to stake claims seeking control over resource-rich continental shelves that stretch for hundreds of kilometres into the once-inaccessible Arctic Ocean, settling long-simmering disputes has become an urgent priority.

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