Queen Elizabeth Islands

Geography

The islands, together 419,061 km² (161,800 sq mi) in area, were renamed as a group after Elizabeth II on her coronation as Queen of Canada in 1953. The islands cover an area approximately the shape of a right triangle, bounded by the Nares Strait on the east, Parry Channel on the south and the Arctic Ocean to the north and west. Most are uninhabited although the Natural Resources Canada's Climate Change Geoscience Program Earth Sciences Sector (ESS), has monitors on the islands. In 1969 Panarctic Oils, now part of Suncor Energy, began operating exploration oil wells in the Franklinian and Sverdrup basins and planned on establishing its resource base in the Queen Elizabeth Islands. It ceased production in the 1970s. At the 2013 GeoConvention the Arctic Islands region were called Canada's perpetual "last petroleum exploration frontier". Hogg and Enachescu argued that the development and implementation of advanced marine and land seismic technologies in Alaska, Northern Europe and Siberia could be modified for use in the Queen Elizabeth Islands.

Queen Elizabeth Islands had not been fully charted until the British Northwest Passage expeditions and later Norwegian exploration of the 19th century.

These islands were known as the Parry Archipelago for over 130 years. They were first named after British Arctic explorer Sir William Parry, who sailed there in 1820, aboard the Hecla. Since the renaming of the archipelago in 1953, the term Parry Islands continued to be used for its southwestern part (less Ellesmere Island and the Sverdrup Islands). The regional break down of the archipelago is therefore as follows:

• Ellesmere Island
• Sverdrup Islands
• Parry Islands

Ellesmere Island is the northernmost and by far the largest. The Sverdrup Islands are located west of Ellesmere Island and north of Norwegian Bay. The remaining islands further south and west, but north of the Parry Channel (Lancaster Sound, Viscount Melville Sound and M'Clure Strait), have been carrying the name Parry Islands, which name until 1953 had also included the Sverdrup Islands and Ellesmere Island. South of the Parry Channel are the remaining islands of the Arctic Archipelago.

The islands lay on top of and were formed by the movement of the Queen Elizabeth Islands Subplate.

Major islands

Many of the islands are among the largest in the world, the largest being Ellesmere Island. Other major islands include Amund Ringnes Island, Axel Heiberg Island, Bathurst Island, Borden Island, Cornwall Island, Cornwallis Island, Devon Island, Eglinton Island, Ellef Ringnes Island, Mackenzie King Island, Melville Island, and Prince Patrick Island.

Smaller islands

Other smaller but notable islands include; Beechey Island (74°43′N 091°51′W / 74.717°N 91.850°W), which held the graves of Petty Officer John Torrington, Royal Marine Private William Braine, and Able Seaman John Hartnell, three members of Sir John Franklin's crew who took part in his lost expedition, Hans Island (80°49′41″N 066°27′35″W / 80.82806°N 66.45972°W), a small, uninhabited barren knoll measuring 1.3 km² (0.50 sq mi) whose ownership was disputed by Canada and Denmark until 14 June 2022, when both countries agreed to split the disputed island roughly in half., the Cheyne Islands (76°18′22″N 097°31′12″W / 76.30611°N 97.52000°W), three small (0.73 km² (0.28 sq mi) together) islands that are Important Bird Area (#NU049) and a Key Migratory Bird Terrestrial Habitat site (NU site 5) and Skraeling Island (78°54′42″N 075°37′58″W / 78.91167°N 75.63278°W) an important archaeological site where Inuit (along with their ancestors the Dorset and Thule) and Norse artifacts have been found. They consist of Silurian and Carboniferous rocks covered with tundra.

Population

With a population of less than 400, the islands are nearly uninhabited. There are only three permanently inhabited places in the islands. The two municipalities are the hamlets of Resolute (population 198 as of the 2016 census), on Cornwallis Island, and Grise Fiord (population 129 as of the 2016 census), on Ellesmere Island. Alert is a weather station staffed by Environment and Climate Change Canada, a Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) atmosphere monitoring laboratory on Ellesmere Island, and has several temporary inhabitants due to the co-located CFS Alert. Eureka, a small research base on Ellesmere Island, has a population of zero but at least eight staff on a continuous rotational basis.

Abandoned Permanent Settlement Seasonally Occupied

Formerly staffed stations were Mould Bay on Prince Patrick Island, Isachsen on Ellef Ringnes Island, and Fort Conger on Ellesmere Island.

Abandoned settlements are Dundas Harbour on Devon Island and Craig Harbour on Ellesmere Island.