A canoe comes to grief around island in Pacific area (7)
I believe the answer is:
oceania
'pacific area' is the definition.
'a canoe comes to grief around island' is the wordplay.
'comes to grief' indicates an anagram.
'around' indicates putting letters inside.
'island' becomes 'i'.
'a'+'canoe'='acanoe'
'acanoe' is an anagram of 'oceana'.
'oceana' enclosing 'i' is 'OCEANIA'.
'in' is the link.
(Other definitions for oceania that I've seen before include "The Pacific islands taken together" , "part of the world" , "remote area" , "Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia" , "Islands of Pacific and adjacent seas" .)