Herschel Island
| Herschel Island | ||
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| Waters | Beaufortsee | |
| Geographical location | 69 ° 35 ′ N , 139 ° 5 ′ W | |
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| length | 18 km | |
| width | 11 km | |
| surface | 112 km² | |
| Highest elevation | 182 m | |
| Residents | uninhabited | |
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Herschel Island or Qikiqtaruk is a Canadian island in the Beaufort Sea that is part of the Arctic Ocean .
Herschel Island is about 150 kilometers west of the mouth of the Mackenzie River and 70 kilometers east of the Alaska border . The island is one of the northernmost areas of the Yukon Territory ; only on the border with Alaska at 141 degrees west does the land mass of the territory extend a few hundred meters further north. It is 112 km² in size; it has a maximum length of approx. 18 km and a maximum width of approx. 11 km, the highest point is 182 m. The island is separated from the mainland by the Workboat Passage, which at its narrowest point in the west at Welles Point (end point of the Avadlek Spit or Nunugruak peninsula ) is only around 1,800 meters wide.
Since Herschel Island lies within the Arctic Circle , the sun shines continuously from May 19 to July 24 , in winter there is polar night from November 29 to January 14 , around Christmas time only with twilight around noon.
history
The first European to sight the island was Sir John Franklin , who reached it in 1826 and named it after his friend the scientist Sir John Herschel . At that time there were still three Inuvialuit (Kigirkenaugmiut) settlements on the island. Estimates of the total number of residents in the far north vary between 200 and 2000. They were owned Russian goods through barter with the Inupiat of Alaska had acquired. They traded simultaneously with the Gwich'in in the Mackenziedelta and in the Porcupine River area .
Between 1890 and 1907 the island had up to 1,500 inhabitants, many of them whalers , with the station at Pauline Cove ( Ilutaq ) on the east coast of the island.
According to the political guidelines in force in the mid-20th century, the Inuvialuit were relocated from Herschel Island to the parishes of Aklavik or Inuvik . The station of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police , built in 1903, was also closed in 1964. There was activity on the island again in the 1970s, when Pauline Cove was used as a safe haven for oil explorers; a mothballed search ship is still lying here today. The last permanent residents left the island when it became part of the 116 km² Herschel Island - Qikiqtaruk Territorial Park in 1987 ; since then only the park rangers have been here in the summer months.
In 1993 and again in 2003, the German adventure traveler Arved Fuchs stopped on Herschel Island while crossing the Northwest Passage .
During the summer, visitors come here on cruise ships or seaplanes chartered in Inuvik to view the former settlement buildings that are now used as a museum. The whaler's graves and the animals living here (birds, caribou , arctic foxes and occasionally polar bears ) are also of interest . From November to June, when the surrounding sea is frozen over, land animals migrate between the island and the mainland.
Erosion due to the thawing of the permafrost
Due to the thawing of the permafrost , the steep coast of the island - like the entire Arctic coastal zone - is at great risk of erosion. The coastline retreats up to 22 meters per year. The mudslides create large, nutrient-rich plumes of sediment in the sea.
Picture gallery
Former whaling station, now a museum
Former whaling station
Whalers burial site
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ card 117d , Northern Land Use Information Series (NLUIS)
- ↑ Where the Akrtian coast falls apart, marine life changes. Press release from the Alfred Wegener Institute , January 14, 2017.
