Smith Sound (; ) is an

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 ( ...

sea passage between

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 ...

and

Nunavut Nunavut 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'' and the Nunavut Land Claims Agr ...

's northernmost island,

Ellesmere Island Ellesmere Island (; ) is Canada's northernmost and List of Canadian islands by area, third largest island, and the List of islands by area, tenth largest in the world. It comprises an area of , slightly smaller than Great Britain, and the total ...

. It links

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 ...

with

Kane Basin Kane Basin (; ) is an Arctic waterway lying between Greenland and Ellesmere Island, Canada's northernmost. It links Smith Sound to Kennedy Channel and forms part of Nares Strait. It is approximately in length and at its widest. It is named aft ...

and forms part of the

Nares Strait Nares Strait (; ) is a waterway between Ellesmere Island and Greenland that connects the northern part of Baffin Bay in the Atlantic Ocean with the Lincoln Sea in the Arctic Ocean. From south to north, the strait includes Smith Sound, Kane Basi ...

. On the Canadian side it extends from

Cape Sabine Cape Sabine is a land point on Pim Island, off the eastern shores of the Johan Peninsula, Ellesmere Island, in the Smith Sound, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. History The cape was named after Arctic explorer Sir Edward Sabine (1788–1883 ...

in the north to Cape Isabella in the south. On the Greenland side of the sound were the now abandoned settlements of

Etah Etah () is a city in the western part of Uttar Pradesh, India, and the administrative headquarters of Etah District. The nearest major cities are Aligarh and Agra. Located approximately 45 miles (72 km) northeast of Agra and about 25 mile ...

and

Annoatok Annoatok or Anoritooq, located at , was a small hunting station in Greenland on Smith Sound about north of Etah. It is now abandoned. History Annoatok was used as a base by Frederick Cook during his Arctic expedition of 1908–09, when he cl ...

History

The first known visit to the area by Europeans was in 1616 when the ''

Discovery Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discovery ...

'', captained by

Robert Bylot Robert Bylot () was an English explorer who made four voyages to the Arctic. He was uneducated and from a working-class background, but was able to rise to rank of master in the English Royal Navy. Voyages Robert Bylot First voyage, 161 ...

and piloted by

William Baffin William Baffin ( – 23 January 1622) was an English navigator, explorer and cartographer. He is best known for his attempt to find the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to Pacific oceans, during which Baffin became the first European to disc ...

, sailed into this region. The sound was originally named ''Sir Thomas Smith's Bay'' after the English diplomat Sir

Thomas Smythe Sir Thomas Smythe (or Smith, c. 1558 – 4 September 1625) was an English merchant, politician and colonial administrator. He was the first governor of the East India Company and treasurer of the Virginia Company from 1609 to 1620 until envelo ...

. By the 1750s it regularly appeared on maps as ''Sir Thomas Smith's Sound'', though no further exploration of the area would be recorded until John Ross' 1818 expedition. By this time it had begun to be known simply as ''Smith Sound''. In 1852

Edward Augustus Inglefield Sir Edward Augustus Inglefield (27 March 1820 – 4 September 1894) was a Royal Navy officer who led one of the searches for the missing Arctic explorer John Franklin during the 1850s. In doing so, his expedition charted previously unexpl ...

penetrated a little further than Baffin, establishing a new furthest north in North America.

References

. ffprint no. 37–38. ambridge: University Press 1949. * Grist, Alexander, and Marcos Zentilli. 2005. "The Thermal History of the Nares Strait, Kane Basin, and Smith Sound Region in Canada and Greenland: Constraints from Apatite Fission-Track and (U Th Sm)/He Dating". ''Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences''. 42: 1547–1569. * Kroeber, A. L. ''The Eskimo of Smith Sound''. ew York: Knickerbocker Press 1900. * Peary, Robert E. ''Northward Over the "Great Ice" A Narrative of Life and Work Along the Shores and Upon the Interior Ice-Cap of Northern Greenland in the Years 1886 and 1891-1897 : with a Description of the Little Tribe of Smith-Sound Eskimos, the Most Northerly Human Beings in the World, and an Account of the Discovery and Bringing Home of the "Saviksue," or Great Cape-York Meteorites''. London: Methuen, 1898. Straits of Greenland Sounds of Qikiqtaaluk Region Bodies of water of Baffin Bay Ellesmere Island Canada–Greenland border International straits {{Greenland-geo-stub

History

References

Further reading