Saunders Island (; ) is in

Baffin Bay Baffin Bay (Inuktitut: ''Saknirutiak Imanga''; ; ; ), 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 s ...

, and off

North Star Bay North Star Bay (), also known as Thule Harbor and Wolstenholme Bay, is at the mouth of Wolstenholme Fjord in north-west Greenland. The Dundas Peninsula, terminating in the mesa-like Mount Dundas, is at the north-eastern end of the bay. Two large ...

, in the

Avannaata Avannaata (, ) is a municipality of Greenland created on 1 January 2018 from the bulk of the former Qaasuitsup municipality. It encompasses an area of 522,700 km2 and has 10,726 inhabitants. Geography In the south, Avannaata is flanked ...

municipality of northwest

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

. The island is named after Commander James Saunders of the British

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

Geography

The island lies off the southern shore of the mouth of

Wolstenholme Fjord Wolstenholme Fjord () is a fjord in Avannaata municipality, Northwest Greenland. The United States' Pituffik Space Base and the abandoned Inuit settlement of Narsaarsuk are on the coast of the fjord. The area was contaminated in 1968 with pluton ...

, north of

Wolstenholme Island Wolstenholme Island () is an island in Baffin Bay, in Avannaata municipality, off northwestern Greenland. The island lies west of the Bylot Sound off Cape Atholl in the southern shore of the mouth of Wolstenholme Fjord, south of Saunders Islan ...

. Geologically it is composed of stratified rock. It is the largest island at the mouth of the fjord, flat-topped and with steep sides, with a landspit in the northeast. Its highest point is . The strait between the islands and the mainland is

Bylot Sound Bylot Sound is the strait between the mainland of Greenland and Saunders Island and Wolstenholme Island in the Avannaata municipality, northwest Greenland. North Star Bay is the eastern part of the sound. Geography The strait separates Saund ...

History

Under Commander James Saunders, sailed to the

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

in 1849 in the spring on a venture to search and resupply Captain

Sir James Clark Ross Sir James Clark Ross (15 April 1800 – 3 April 1862) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer of both the northern and southern polar regions. In the Arctic, he participated in two expeditions led by his uncle, John Ross, and in f ...

' expedition, who in turn had sailed in 1848 trying to locate the whereabouts of

Sir John Franklin Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer and colonial administrator. After serving in the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and thro ...

's expedition.Icy Imprisonment: The 1849 Voyage of the HMS North Star
/ref> Failing to find Franklin or Ross, Saunders's mission aboard ''North Star'' consisted in depositing stores along several named areas of the Canadian Arctic coast and returning to England before the onset of winter. However, James Saunders's ship became trapped by ice off the coast of northwest Greenland in

. During the winter 1849–50 Saunders named numerous landmarks in that area, including Saunders Island, while wintering in the frozen bay. The

Literary Expedition Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, plays, and poems. It includes both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, th ...

led by

Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen (15 January 1872 – 25 November 1907) was a Danish author, ethnologist, and explorer, from Ringkøbing. He was most notably an explorer of Greenland. Literary expedition With Count Harald Moltke and Knud Rasmussen Mylius- ...

wintered in 1903–1904 on the island. Its aim was to make

ethnographic Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

research of the local Inuit.

Knud Rasmussen Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen (; 7 June 1879 – 21 December 1933) was a Greenlandic-Danish polar explorer and anthropologist. He has been called the "father of Eskimology" (now often known as Inuit Studies or Greenlandic and Arctic Studies) ...

Harald Moltke Harald Viggo Moltke (14 December 1871 – 24 June 1960) was a Danish painter, author and explorer. As an explorer he acted as draftsman in four Arctic expeditions. Early life and education Harald Moltke was born in Helsingør, the son of Oskar P ...

and

Jørgen Brønlund Jørgen Brønlund (14 December 1877 – November 1907) was a Kalaallit, Greenlandic List of polar explorers, polar explorer, educator, and Catechism, catechist. He participated in two Danish expeditions to Greenland in the early 20th century. ...

were also part of this venture.
Den Litterære Ekspedition
'. In ''

Den Store Danske Encyklopædi ''Den Store Danske Encyklopædi'' () is the most comprehensive contemporary Danish language encyclopedia. The 20 volumes of the encyclopedia were published successively between 1994 and 2001; a one-volume supplement was published in 2002 and two ...

Biodiversity

The island has been designated an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

because it supports a breeding population of some 143,000 pairs of

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'' i ...

s, as well as other seabirds, including

northern fulmar The northern fulmar (''Fulmarus glacialis''), fulmar, or Arctic fulmar is an abundant seabird found primarily in subarctic regions of the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans. There has been one confirmed sighting in the Southern Hemisphere, ...

s and

black guillemot The black guillemot or tystie (''Cepphus grylle'') is a medium-sized seabird of the Alcidae family, native throughout northern Atlantic coasts and eastern North American coasts. It is resident in much of its range, but large populations from the ...

References

External links

* {{commons category-inline
NASA - IceBridge Survey Flight Over Saunders Island and Wolstenholme Fjord
Uninhabited islands of Greenland Avannaata Important Bird Areas of Greenland Important Bird Areas of Arctic islands Seabird colonies

Geography

History

Biodiversity

See also

References

External links