Cardigan Strait is a narrow
waterway
A waterway is any navigable body of water. Broad distinctions are useful to avoid ambiguity, and disambiguation will be of varying importance depending on the nuance of the equivalent word in other languages. A first distinction is necessary b ...
in the territory of
Nunavut. It lies between the eastern coast of
Devon Island and the western coast of
Ellesmere Island.
Norwegian Bay
Norwegian Bay (french: Baie Norvégienne) is an Arctic Ocean waterway in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada. Amund Ringnes Island is to the northwest (separated by the Hendriksen Strait from Cornwall Island), and Axel Heiberg Island i ...
opens to the north.
North Kent Island is situated within the strait.
A
polynya
A polynya () is an area of open water surrounded by sea ice. It is now used as a geographical term for an area of unfrozen seawater within otherwise contiguous pack ice or fast ice. It is a loanword from the Russian полынья (), which r ...
forms in Cardigan Strait most winters, used by wintering
Bearded and Ringed seals,
polar bears, and
walrus
The walrus (''Odobenus rosmarus'') is a large flippered marine mammal with a discontinuous distribution about the North Pole in the Arctic Ocean and subarctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. The walrus is the only living species in the fami ...
. It's also frequented in the early portion of the
breeding season by
seabird
Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same enviro ...
s.
References
Cardigan Straitat the
Atlas of Canada
The Atlas of Canada (french: L'Atlas du Canada) is an online atlas published by Natural Resources Canada that has information on every city, town, village, and hamlet in Canada. It was originally a print atlas, with its first edition being publishe ...
.
Straits of Qikiqtaaluk Region
{{QikiqtaalukNU-geo-stub