Cape Parry is a headland in Canada's Northwest Territories. Located at the northern tip of the Parry Peninsula, it projects into

Amundsen Gulf Amundsen Gulf is a gulf located mainly in the Inuvik Region, Northwest Territories, Canada with a small section in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut. It lies between Banks Island and Victoria Island and the mainland. It is approximately in leng ...

. The nearest settlement is

Paulatuk Paulatuk is a hamlet located in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is located adjacent to Darnley Bay, in the Amundsen Gulf. The town was named for the coal that was found in the area in the 1920s, and the Siglitun spelli ...

, to the south, and Fiji Island is located to the west. Cape Parry was formerly accessible through Cape Parry Airport that was located at the Distant Early Warning Line. The airport was listed as abandoned after the closure of the DEW line site. It is named for the Arctic explorer

William Edward Parry Sir William Edward Parry (19 December 1790 – 8 July 1855) was an Royal Navy officer and explorer best known for his 1819–1820 expedition through the Parry Channel, probably the most successful in the long quest for the Northwest Pass ...

History

Between the 1950s to the 1980s, a Distant Early Warning Line site (PIN-Main, ) was located south of Police Point, the cape's western point. During the period of 1969 to 1982, eighteen sounding rocket launches were made at Cape Parry.

Geography

Cape Parry is a three-pointed outcrop of coastal cliffs. The limestone formation rises above sea level. The deeply incised coastal beaches are composed of sand and gravel, and form bays and inlets. On either side of the narrow isthmus that joins Cape Parry to the Parry Peninsula are Tyne Bay to the west and Gillet Bay to the east.

Climate

Absolute minimum temperature is , while absolute maximum temperature is . Annual snowfall is . Although the manned

weather station A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for measuring atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasts and to study the weather and climate. The measurements taken include tempera ...

is no longer in operation there is an

automatic weather station An automatic weather station (AWS) is an automated version of the traditional weather station, either to save human labour or to enable measurements from remote areas. An AWS will typically consist of a weather-proof enclosure containing the data ...

(CZCP) at the site.

Flora and fauna

There is sparse vegetation, except in low-lying wet areas.

Beluga whale The beluga whale () (''Delphinapterus leucas'') is an Arctic and sub-Arctic cetacean. It is one of two members of the family Monodontidae, along with the narwhal, and the only member of the genus ''Delphinapterus''. It is also known as the ...

, bowhead whale, bearded seal,

ringed seal The ringed seal (''Pusa hispida'') is an earless seal inhabiting the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. The ringed seal is a relatively small seal, rarely greater than 1.5 m in length, with a distinctive patterning of dark spots surrounded by light ...

, as well as caribou, grizzly bear, and polar bear, frequent the area. There are nationally significant populations of

common eider The common eider (pronounced ) (''Somateria mollissima''), also called St. Cuthbert's duck or Cuddy's duck, is a large ( in body length) sea-duck that is distributed over the northern coasts of Europe, North America and eastern Siberia. It breed ...

, glaucous gull,

king eider The king eider (pronounced ) (''Somateria spectabilis'') is a large sea duck that breeds along Northern Hemisphere Arctic coasts of northeast Europe, North America and Asia. The birds spend most of the year in coastal marine ecosystems at high la ...

long-tailed duck The long-tailed duck (''Clangula hyemalis''), formerly known as oldsquaw, is a medium-sized sea duck that breeds in the tundra and taiga regions of the arctic and winters along the northern coastlines of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It is th ...

, and

yellow-billed loon The yellow-billed loon (''Gavia adamsii''), also known as the white-billed diver, is the largest member of the loon or diver family. Breeding adults have a black head, white underparts and chequered black-and-white mantle. Non-breeding plumage is ...

on the cape. It is also one of only two sites in the western Arctic where black guillemot are thought to breed. The cape's

thick-billed murre The thick-billed murre or Brünnich's guillemot (''Uria lomvia'') is a bird in the auk family (Alcidae). This bird is named after the Danish zoologist Morten Thrane Brünnich. The very deeply black North Pacific subspecies ''Uria lomvia arra'' ...

colony is more isolated than any other

murre ''Uria'' is a genus of seabirds in the auk family known in Britain as guillemots, in most of North America as murres, and in Newfoundland and Labrador as turr. These are medium-sized birds with mainly brown or black plumage in the breeding sea ...

colony in the world.

Protection status

The cape, an Important Bird Area (NT041), is home to the Cape Parry Migratory Bird Sanctuary (Site 6) which was established in 1961. It is also an International Biological Programme Site (#4-11) and lies within a Key Marine Habitat Site (Site 19).

References

{{Authority control Peninsulas of the Northwest Territories Important Bird Areas of the Northwest Territories Rocket launch sites Military history of Canada Former populated places in the Inuvik Region Geography of the Inuvialuit Settlement Region