King William Island
| King William Island | |
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| Waters | Arctic Ocean |
| Geographical location | 68 ° 58 ′ N , 97 ° 14 ′ W |
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| length | 175 km |
| surface | 13,111 km² |
| Highest elevation | (unnamed) 141 m |
| Residents | 1064 (2006) <1 inh / km² |
| main place | Gjoa Haven |
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King William Island (formerly: King William Land ; Inuktitut : Qikiqtaq ) is a large and sparsely populated island in the arctic north of Canada .
geography
location
King William Island is located in the Nunavut Territory (Kitikmeot Region) and is part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago . It is located a good 250 km north of the Arctic Circle in the southern Arctic Ocean .
From the closest part of the North American mainland, the Adelaide Peninsula to the south , the island is separated by the Simpson Strait (at the narrowest point only a good five kilometers wide) and the Storis Passage . To the east of King William Island is the large Boothia Peninsula , from which it is separated by the Rae Strait and the James Ross Strait . To the west, Victoria Strait , beyond which Victoria Island is located, surrounds the island. In contrast, the north coast of King William Island is not bordered by a strait or strait, but by a larger area of open sea ( McClintock Canal ), which is closed off by Prince of Wales Island , a good 150 km further north ( see map).
There are numerous smaller islands and archipelagos off the coast of King William Island, among which the Royal Geographical Society Islands as well as Matty Island and the Tennent Islands are among the most important.
geology
From a geological point of view, King William Island is generally regarded as part of the Canadian Shield , but in some cases it is also part of a separate geological province, the “Arctic Platform” . The bedrock of the island comes from the geological periods Ordovician and Silurian in the Paleozoic Era ; so it is around 400 to 500 million years old.
The surface shape of King William Island is a result of the Worm Ice Age (referred to as the "Wisconsin Ice Age" in North America) which ended about 10,000 years ago. At that time the island - like practically all of Canada today - was completely under glacier ice . In particular, its countless lakes formed by the meltwater, but also clearly recognizable ground moraines , glacial channels and oser (embankments formed by glacier water ) bear witness to this period. It is also noteworthy that during the last glaciation, the area of the island was at times more than 200 m lower than it is today due to the enormous weight of the ice that weighed on it and only slowly rose again after the glaciers had retreated. Before this uplift, the island was completely below sea level and is therefore relatively young in geological terms.
topography
King William Island covers an area of 13,111 km² and is therefore slightly larger than the state of Tyrol or slightly smaller than Schleswig-Holstein . The island measures about 175 km from east to west and about 160 km from the northernmost to the southernmost point. The total length of the island's coastline is almost 1,300 km. The terrain is mostly slightly hilly - its highest point is only 141 m above sea level - and interspersed with countless lakes. In addition, the large amounts of meltwater in the short arctic summers created a network of countless rivers and streams. Just as the interior of the island is characterized by the constant contrast of land and inland waters, the coasts are also very strongly structured by a permanent sequence of peninsulas (such as the Gibson Peninsula , the easternmost part of King William Island) and headlands, fjords (e.g. Collinson Inlet , which is cut more than 25 km deep into the island ) and bays.
climate
King William Island lies in the zone of the polar tundra climate (according to the classification developed by Köppen ). The climate is characterized by cool summers and extremely cold winters and is generally very dry. Freezing temperatures can occur any month of the year; only July and August are largely frost-free. The island usually has a closed snow cover from the second half of September, which remains until early summer. There is permafrost in the ground . The sea around King William Island is frozen over all year round, with the exception of a few weeks in late summer.
The average maximum temperature (measured in Gjoa Haven) is 12.1 ° C in July and -30.7 ° C in February, the average minimum temperature is 3.8 ° C in July and -37.1 ° C in January. The average annual rainfall is only 192 mm.
Flora and fauna
King William Island is part of the “Northern Arctic” ecoregion (according to the Canadian classification). This type of habitat is characterized by the extremely cold and very dry climate, snow almost all year round, almost 24 hours of daylight in the summer months as opposed to almost complete darkness in winter and a flat barren landscape with permafrost soils. Accordingly, only a relatively small number of animal and plant species adapted to the extreme conditions can assert themselves in this environment.
The vegetation is mainly characterized by treeless tundra , whereby the north of the island is generally even more sparsely overgrown than the southern part. The island is hundreds of kilometers north of the tree line ; Grasses, lichens and small bushes are the dominant plants. In addition, due to the harsh climate, especially in the north of King William Island, there are stretches of land that have practically no vegetation at all, but represent pure sand and scree landscapes.
Many species typical of the Arctic fauna can be found on King William Island , including the polar bear and the arctic fox . The surrounding waters are particularly rich in fish and marine mammals (including belugas and narwhals ). During the short summer months, large herds of caribou come from the mainland further south to graze on the island.
history
King William Island had long been settled by the Inuit by the Netsilik people before it was discovered by European seafarers . In 1830/31 a British expedition led by Sir John Ross reached the north coast of the island for the first time . Ross named it after his King William IV , who had just ascended the throne of the British Empire that year. However, the name was initially still "King William's Land" , as Ross did not yet recognize that it was an island.
In 1837, in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), Peter Warren Dease (1788–1863) and Thomas Simpson (1808–1840) were the first to reach the south coast of King William Island. In the further course of the 19th century, a number of other expeditions passed the island in search of the legendary Northwest Passage .
Probably the most famous of them, the British Franklin Expedition , came to a tragic end here when the two excellently equipped ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror , led by polar explorer John Franklin , were trapped by the ice off the north coast of King William Island in 1846 . Franklin had tried to sail west past the island in search of the Northwest Passage, but had failed because of the pack ice pressing against the island from the McClintock Channel . The decimated crew left the ships after two winters in April 1848 because the food on board had become catastrophic. She made a desperate attempt to reach the HBC outpost. Most of the participants died on the island and only a few reached the North American mainland, where they were also killed. From 1848 onwards, the British Admiralty and Franklin's widow Jane Griffin sent numerous rescue expeditions to find the crew who had disappeared in the Arctic. Several of these expeditions, u. a. those under Francis Leopold McClintock , also reached the island, whereby ever more precise knowledge of the geography of the area could be gained.
Until 1903 no ship reached a continuous Northwest Passage by sea. Only the expedition of the Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen sailed around the island eastwards. Amundsen's ship, the Gjøa , was also stopped by heavy ice. The expedition was forced to winter in a bay in the Rasmussen Basin on the southeast coast of King William Island (where the main town of Gjoa Haven is now) in 1903/04 and 1904/05 . During this involuntary stay, Amundsen and his team were taught traditional techniques by the indigenous inhabitants of the islands that enable them to survive in the Arctic. With the successful completion of Amundsen's expedition, it turned out that a possible route of the Northwest Passage actually goes past King William Island.
In 1927 HBC opened a branch in Gjoa Haven.
The presumed sinking site of the two ships of the Franklin expedition was declared a place of national importance, a National Historic Site of Canada , by Canada in 1992 .
population
Despite its size, the island has just under 1000 inhabitants. The main town is Gjoa Haven (in Inuktitut : Ursuqtuq ) on the southeastern coast . Another settlement is the hamlet of Gladman Point on Simpsonstrasse . Over 90% of the island's population are Inuit. Inuktitut and English are spoken on the island.
Economy and Infrastructure
Gjoa Haven has an airfield and a port. For the residents of King William Islands, the aircraft is the most important connection to the outside world. First Air Ltd. scheduled flights . connect Gjoa Haven with Nunavut's capital, Iqaluit, as well as with Cambridge Bay on Victoria Island and with Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories . Partly also be Seaplanes used as transportation. With the exception of a few unpaved slopes in the immediate vicinity of the main town, there is no road network on the island. There are a few taxi companies in Gjoa Haven. In winter, snowmobiles are a popular means of transport.
The main economic activities on the island include hunting and fishing (largely for personal use) as well as the production of carvings and handicrafts. There is a general store in Gjoa Haven and, the only commercial accommodation available to visitors to the island, a simple hotel with 19 beds. Some of the residents find work in state or community institutions such as the municipal administration, post office, school and health center.
Web links
- Northwest Passage Territorial Park (English)
- The Franklin Trail (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Atlas of Canada
- ↑ Gjoa Haven , Canadian Climate Normals 1981-2010 Station Data, accessed May 26, 2016 (English)
- ^ Erebus and Terror National Historic Site of Canada. In: Canadian Register of Historic Places. Retrieved September 10, 2014 .