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Viscount Melville Sound
Viscount Melville Sound is an arm of the Arctic Ocean in the Kitikmeot Region, Nunavut and the Inuvik Region, Northwest Territories, Canada. Forming part of the Parry Channel, it separates Victoria Island and Prince of Wales Island from the Queen Elizabeth Islands. East of the sound, via Barrow Strait, lies Lancaster Sound, leading into Baffin Bay; westward lies the M'Clure Strait and the Arctic Ocean/Beaufort Sea. The sound is a part of the Northwest Passage. In 1854, Edward Belcher abandoned his ship, HMS ''Resolute'', in the sound while searching for Sir John Franklin and his lost expedition. In 1855 HMS ''Resolute'' was found drifting off Baffin Island Baffin Island (formerly Baffin Land), in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada and the fifth-largest island in the world. Its area is , slightly larger than Spain; its population was 13,039 as of the 2021 Canadia ..., and was later ceremonially returned to Queen Victoria. References ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, although some oceanographers call it the Arctic Mediterranean Sea. It has been described approximately as an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It is also seen as the northernmost part of the all-encompassing World Ocean. The Arctic Ocean includes the North Pole region in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere and extends south to about 60°N. The Arctic Ocean is surrounded by Eurasia and North America, and the borders follow topographic features: the Bering Strait on the Pacific side and the Greenland Scotland Ridge on the Atlantic side. It is mostly covered by sea ice throughout the year and almost completely in winter. The Arctic Ocean's surface temperature and salinity vary seasonally as the ice cover melts and freezes; its salinity is t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baffin Bay
Baffin Bay ( Inuktitut: ''Saknirutiak Imanga''; kl, Avannaata Imaa; french: Baie de Baffin), located between Baffin Island and the west coast of Greenland, is defined by the International Hydrographic Organization as a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is sometimes considered a sea of the North Atlantic Ocean. It is connected to the Atlantic via Davis Strait and the Labrador Sea. The narrower Nares Strait connects Baffin Bay with the Arctic Ocean. The bay is not navigable most of the year because of the ice cover and high density of floating ice and icebergs in the open areas. However, a polynya of about , known as the North Water, opens in summer on the north near Smith Sound. Most of the aquatic life of the bay is concentrated near that region. Extent The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of Baffin Bay as follows: History The area of the bay has been inhabited since BC. Around AD 1200, the initial Dorset settlers were replaced by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baffin Island
Baffin Island (formerly Baffin Land), in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada and the fifth-largest island in the world. Its area is , slightly larger than Spain; its population was 13,039 as of the 2021 Canadian census; and it is located at . It also contains the city of Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut. Name The Inuktitut name for the island is , which means "very big island" ( "island" + "very big") and in Inuktitut syllabics is written as . This name is used for the administrative region the island is part of ( Qikiqtaaluk Region), as well as in multiple places in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, such as some smaller islands: Qikiqtaaluk in Baffin Bay and Qikiqtaaluk in Foxe Basin. Norse explorers referred to it as ("stone land"). In 1576, English seaman Martin Frobisher made landfall on the island, naming it "Queen Elizabeth's Foreland" and Frobisher Bay is named after him. The island is named after English explorer William Baff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franklin's Lost Expedition
Franklin's lost expedition was a failed British voyage of Arctic exploration led by Captain Sir John Franklin that departed England in 1845 aboard two ships, and , and was assigned to traverse the last unnavigated sections of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic and to record magnetic data to help determine whether a better understanding could aid navigation. The expedition met with disaster after both ships and their crews, a total of 129 officers and men, became icebound in Victoria Strait near King William Island in what is today the Canadian territory of Nunavut. After being icebound for more than a year ''Erebus'' and ''Terror'' were abandoned in April 1848, by which point Franklin and nearly two dozen others had died. The survivors, now led by Franklin's second-in-command, Francis Crozier, and ''Erebus''s captain, James Fitzjames, set out for the Canadian mainland and disappeared, presumably having perished. Pressed by Franklin's wife, Jane, and others, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir John Franklin
Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. After serving in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through the islands of the Arctic Archipelago, in 1819 and 1825, and served as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1839 to 1843. During his third and final expedition, an attempt to traverse the Northwest Passage in 1845, Franklin's ships became icebound off King William Island in what is now Nunavut, where he died in June 1847. The icebound ships were abandoned ten months later and the entire crew died, from causes such as starvation, hypothermia, and scurvy. Biography Early life Franklin was born in Spilsby, Lincolnshire, on , the ninth of twelve children born to Hannah Weekes and Willingham Franklin. His father was a merchant descended from a line of country gentlemen while his mother was the daughter of a farmer. One of his b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HMS Resolute (1850)
HMS ''Resolute'' was a mid-19th-century barque-rigged ship of the British Royal Navy, specially outfitted for Arctic exploration. ''Resolute'' became trapped in the ice and was abandoned in 1854. Recovered by an American whaler, she was returned to Queen Victoria in 1856. Timbers from the ship were later used to construct the ''Resolute'' desk which was presented to the President of the United States and is currently located in the White House Oval Office. History In the face of rising concerns regarding the fate of the Arctic expedition of Sir John Franklin, having left Britain in 1845 in search of the North West Passage, the British Government, in 1848, sent expeditions in search of the expedition. With few existing warships deemed suitable, six merchant ships were purchased between 1848 and 1850 and soon converted to exploration ships: two steamships, HMS ''Pioneer'' and HMS ''Intrepid'', the other four (''Resolute'', , and ) seagoing sailing ships. The first ship to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Belcher
Admiral Sir Edward Belcher (27 February 1799 – 18 March 1877) was a British naval officer, hydrographer, and explorer. Born in Nova Scotia, he was the great-grandson of Jonathan Belcher, who served as a colonial governor of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New Jersey. Biography Early life Belcher was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the second son of Andrew Belcher and entered the Royal Navy in 1812. Surveys In 1825, he accompanied Frederick William Beechey's expedition to the Pacific and Bering Strait as a surveyor. In 1835 he was surveying in the Irish Sea in , and in 1836 he commanded a surveying ship on the north and west coasts of Africa and in the British seas. Belcher took up the work which Beechey had left unfinished on the Pacific coast of South America. He was on board , which was ordered to return to England in 1839 via the Trans-Pacific route. Belcher made various observations at a number of islands which he visited, having been delayed by being despat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northwest Passage
The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The eastern route along the Arctic coasts of Norway and Siberia is accordingly called the Northeast Passage (NEP). The various islands of the archipelago are separated from one another and from Mainland Canada by a series of Arctic waterways collectively known as the Northwest Passages, Northwestern Passages or the Canadian Internal Waters. For centuries, European explorers, beginning with Christopher Columbus in 1492, sought a navigable passage as a possible trade route to Asia, but were blocked by North, Central, and South America, by ice, or by rough waters (e.g. Tierra del Fuego). An ice-bound northern route was discovered in 1850 by the Irish explorer Robert McClure. Scotsman John Rae explored a more southerly area in 1854 through which Norwegian Roald Amundsen f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beaufort Sea
The Beaufort Sea (; french: Mer de Beaufort, Iñupiaq: ''Taġiuq'') is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska, and west of Canada's Arctic islands. The sea is named after Sir Francis Beaufort, a hydrographer. The Mackenzie River, the longest in Canada, empties into the Canadian part of the Beaufort Sea west of Tuktoyaktuk, which is one of the few permanent settlements on the sea's shores. The sea, characterized by severe climate, is frozen over most of the year. Historically, only a narrow pass up to opened in August–September near its shores, but recently due to climate change in the Arctic the ice-free area in late summer has greatly enlarged. Until recently, the Beaufort Sea was known as an important reservoir for the replenishment of Arctic sea ice. Sea ice would often rotate for several years in the Beaufort Gyre, the dominant ocean current of the Beaufort Sea, growing into sturdy and thick multi-year i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
M'Clure Strait
The M'Clure Strait (sometimes rendered McClure Strait) is a strait on the edge of the Canadian Northwest Territories. It forms the northwestern end of the Parry Channel which extends east all the way to Baffin Bay and is thus a possible route for the Northwest Passage. The strait was named for Robert McClure, an Irish Arctic explorer serving in the Royal Navy. He was the first man to traverse the North-West Passage (by boat and sledge). The strait connects the Beaufort Sea in the west with Viscount Melville Sound in the east. It is bounded by Prince Patrick Island, Eglinton Island and Melville Island on the north and Banks Island on the south. As the strait is chronically blocked with thick ice, it is usually impassable to ships; in 1969, the United States-registered tanker SS ''Manhattan'' was freed from the ice by a Canadian icebreaker, and forced to travel through Canadian territorial waters to complete its westward passage. Ice prevented ''Manhattan'' from going through Mc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lancaster Sound
Lancaster Sound () is a body of water in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is located between Devon Island and Baffin Island, forming the eastern entrance to the Parry Channel and the Northwest Passage. East of the sound lies Baffin Bay; to the west lies Viscount Melville Sound. Further west a traveller would enter the M'Clure Strait before heading into the Arctic Ocean. The Inuit and their predecessors in the region, the Paleo-Eskimos, have relied for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years on the sound's abundant natural wealth for food, clothing and shelter. Today, residents of the three Nunavut communities of Pond Inlet, Arctic Bay, and Resolute continue this tradition, depending on its waters for their economic and cultural well being. History Lancaster Sound was named in 1616 by explorer William Baffin for Sir James Lancaster, one of the three main financial supporters of his exploratory expeditions. The abortive expedition by the British explorer John Ross in 181 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kitikmeot Region
Kitikmeot Region (; Inuktitut: ''Qitirmiut'' ) is an administrative region of Nunavut, Canada. It consists of the southern and eastern parts of Victoria Island with the adjacent part of the mainland as far as the Boothia Peninsula, together with King William Island and the southern portion of Prince of Wales Island. The regional centre is Cambridge Bay (population 1,766;). Before 1999, Kitikmeot Region existed under slightly different boundaries as Kitikmeot Region, Northwest Territories. Transportation Access to the territorial capital of Iqaluit is difficult and expensive as the only direct flight is from Cambridge Bay, which began during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. For example, Iqaluit is approximately from Kugaaruk, the closest Kitikmeot community. A one-way flight to the capital costs between $2,691 and $2,911 (as of November 2016) and involves flying to, along with an overnight stay in, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, approximately southwest of Kugaa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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