Control of High Arctic waters is "critically important" for both Canadian sovereignty and the protection of a fragile ecosystem, says federal Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn.

"It's critically important that it's under our sovereign control so that we set the parameters for the environment and that we make the decisions whether or not even to allow exploration," Lunn said Monday on the eve of an international conference on the Arctic Ocean.

Lunn is expected to travel to Ilulissat, Greenland, on Tuesday for three days of meetings with officials from the four other nations with continental shelves on the Arctic Ocean: Norway, Russia, the United States and Denmark. The conference is expected to discuss United-Nations-sponsored rules on dividing up jurisdiction over those waters, whose resources are becoming increasingly accessible as climate change reduces sea ice.

The conference will also discuss how the five countries can co-operate on maritime safety, environmental protection and search and rescue.

"We're going up to reaffirm our commitment on defending and protecting our sovereignty in the Arctic," Lunn said.

The countries ringing the Arctic Ocean are now filing their claims to the seabed under the UN Law of the Sea Convention. Canada is gathering data in support of a claim that includes a slice of the seabed stretching to the North Pole that would be the equivalent in size of the three Prairie provinces combined.

Scientists working on the project told The Canadian Press in April that early mapping results are encouraging.

"There's a lot of co-operation between countries that is happening, but it's important that we have strong presence on the world stage," said Lunn.

Lunn emphasized that boundaries in the Arctic must be decided through science.

Canada's territorial disputes in the Arctic, such as the location of the boundary between the Yukon and Alaska and the control of the Northwest Passage, aren't expected to be major topics at the Greenland conference.

"This isn't dealing with that," he said. "This is dealing with the continental shelf.

"The vast majority of this area wouldn't be subject to any sort of overlapping claim."

But don't expect concrete measures to come out of Ilulissat.

"If you're looking for specific solutions on a specific thing out of this conference, I'm not going to speculate what may or may not come out of that," Lunn said. "We want to reaffirm our comittment on the world stage."

The Harper government has been criticized for sending Lunn instead of Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier. But Lunn points out that it's his department that's researched most of the science in support of Canada's Arctic claim.

"It's something that I'm very familiar with, something that I'm actively involved with.

"Regardless of which minister would be there, we'd all be representing the government with the same message. We're here to ensure we defend Canada's sovereignty in the North."

Dennis Bevington, NDP Arctic sovereignty critic, said the conference offers Canada a chance to get things right in the Arctic.

"We've been pushing for a greater diplomatic effort to solve some of the issues we see on Arctic sovereignty," said Bevington, who will accompany the Canadian delegation. "We have the chance to do many things right here."

Arctic experts have said the meeting will set the tone for future talks between countries that have continental shelves in the Arctic.

Some energy firms have already begun exploring the waters off Greenland. Large deposits of gas are known to exist off the islands of the Canadian archipelago as well as the coasts of the Northwest Territories and Alaska.