British Arctic Territory Flag Hoax

Last modified: 2005-07-23 by rob raeside
Keywords: british arctic territory | hoax |
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• British Arctic Territory flag hoax and blue ensign
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• White ensign
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British Arctic Territory flag hoax and blue ensign

  Ensign by António Martins, badge by Clay Moss

The BAT story - as best as I can remember it.

I have had a particular interest in British blue and red ensigns ever since I started flag collecting. I believe this interest started when I was a youngster living in Hawaii. I remember seeing a giant sailing yacht anchored in Honolulu. It was flying a large British colonial Fiji red ensign. The ensign was so striking to me, that it sparked me to find out all I could about British territorial flags and ensigns. As I became more intellectually involved in Vexillology and Vexillography, I thought it would be neat to design a colonial British ensign badge. Realistically though, I had two things working against me. First, I wasn't British and had no connection to the Ministry of Defence. Second, the empire was shrinking anyway, and the prospect of designing a colonial badge was remote at best.

However, inspiration for making up a British territory and its flags came to me in early 1995 while I was looking at a rather sizable map of Ellesmere Island, Canada. The north part of the island was basically a territorial park except