Kuunajuk formerly Ellice River, for Edward Ellice, Jr., is a waterway in the

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 ...

Nunavut Nunavut ( , ; iu, ᓄᓇᕗᑦ , ; ) is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' ...

, Canada. It rises close to the Back River between

Lake Beechey Lake Beechey (sometimes Beechey Lake) is a lake in the Kitikmeot Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is a long, narrow, lake-expansion of the Back River. It is part of the western Canadian Precambrian Shield. It contains a few unnamed islands. Histor ...

and Pelly Lake, and flows northward into the

Queen Maud Gulf Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

. Its mouth opens between Campbell Bay and Gernon Bay. The land between the river and Sherman Inlet is generally flat and marshy.

Muskox The muskox (''Ovibos moschatus'', in Latin "musky sheep-ox"), also spelled musk ox and musk-ox, plural muskoxen or musk oxen (in iu, ᐅᒥᖕᒪᒃ, umingmak; in Woods Cree: ), is a hoofed mammal of the family Bovidae. Native to the Arctic, i ...

and

barren-ground caribou The barren-ground caribou (''Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus''; but subject to a recent taxonomic revision. See Reindeer: Taxomony.) is a subspecies of the reindeer (or the caribou in North America) that is found in the Canadian territories of ...

frequent the area.

Fauna

The river is home to

Arctic char The Arctic char or Arctic charr (''Salvelinus alpinus'') is a cold-water fish in the family Salmonidae, native to alpine lakes and arctic and subarctic coastal waters. Its distribution is Circumpolar North. It spawns in freshwater and populatio ...

. Large populations of the American brant goose nest on coastal islands at the river's mouth.

References

Rivers of Kitikmeot Region {{Nunavut-river-stub

Fauna

See also

References