Richards Island is one of the

Canadian arctic islands The Arctic Archipelago, also known as the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, is an archipelago lying to the north of the Canadian continental mainland, excluding Greenland (an autonomous territory of Denmark). Situated in the northern extremity of ...

within the Northwest Territories, Canada. The island has an area of , being long and wide. Its eastern limit is marked by the main channel of the Mackenzie River, while its western limit is defined by the narrower Reindeer Channel. Richards Island was named by John Richardson in 1826 after the

Governor of the Bank of England The governor of the Bank of England is the most senior position in the Bank of England. It is nominally a civil service post, but the appointment tends to be from within the bank, with the incumbent grooming their successor. The governor of the Ba ...

, John Baker Richards. The island, while desolate, is home to some major oil and gas sites. The nearest permanent settlement is

Tuktoyaktuk Tuktoyaktuk , or ''Tuktuyaaqtuuq'' (Inuvialuktun: ''it looks like a caribou''), is an Inuvialuit hamlet located in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada, at the northern terminus of the Inuvik–Tuktoyaktuk Highway.Montgomer ...

, which lies to the east on the mainland.

References

Uninhabited islands of the Northwest Territories {{NorthwestTerritories-geo-stub