Queen Elizabeth Islands

Queen Elizabeth Islands
The Arctic Cordillera on Ellesmere Island
Waters	Arctic Ocean
archipelago	Canadian Arctic Archipelago
Geographical location	80 ° 0 ′  N , 93 ° 0 ′  W Coordinates: 80 ° 0 ′  N , 93 ° 0 ′  W
Number of islands	34 main islands
Main island	Ellesmere Island Cornwallis Island
Total land area	419,061 km²
Residents	375 (2006)
Queen Elizabeth Islands (red checkered) Nunavut Northwest Territories Quebec Greenland

The Queen Elizabeth Islands ( English Queen Elizabeth Islands , French Îles de la Reine-Élisabeth ) form the north of the Canadian-Arctic Archipelago , north of Lancaster Sound and Viscount-Melville Sound . Politically, they mostly belong to the Nunavut Territory and to a lesser extent to the Northwest Territories . The 34 main islands and 2092 smaller islands cover a total area of ​​419,061 km².

population

With around 400 inhabitants, the Queen Elizabeth Islands are very sparsely populated. The only noteworthy settlements are Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island (229 inhabitants at the 2006 census) and Grise Fiord on Ellesmere Island (141 inhabitants). Otherwise there is the Alert station with a permanent crew of 5.

Eureka and Camp Hazen on Ellesmere Island as well as the McGill Station on Axel Heiberg Island and the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) on Devon Island are only occupied in summer .

Formerly inhabited stations are Mold Bay on Prince Patrick Island , Isachsen on Ellef Ringnes Island , Fort Conger on Ellesmere Island and Ward Hunt Island Camp on Ward Hunt Island .

Former, now abandoned settlements are Dundas Harbor on Devon Island and Craig Harbor on Ellesmere Island.

administration

Until 1999, the Queen Elizabeth Islands belonged to the Franklin District of the Northwest Territories of Canada.

With the establishment of the Nunavut Territory in 1999, all islands and island parts of the archipelago east of longitude 110 ° West were added to the Qikiqtaaluk region of the new territory, i.e. H. most of the archipelago. The rest stayed with the Northwest Territories. The islands of Borden , Mackenzie-King and Melville are intersected by the new border . Of the larger islands, only Prince Patrick , Eglinton , Emerald and Brock belong completely to the Northwest Territories .

history

The islands were discovered by William Baffin , who first ventured into the island region in 1615-1616, and William Edward Parry , who came back to the islands of the Canadian archipelago 200 years later (1819-1820) in search of a north-west passage. After him they were referred to as the Parry Islands until 1954 ; then they were renamed in honor of Queen Elizabeth II . Important explorations and mapping were carried out in the course of the numerous search expeditions for the missing polar explorer Sir John Franklin in the middle of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Norwegian Otto Sverdrup made a significant contribution to the exploration of the islands, especially the archipelago named after him. Sverdrup took possession of the lands he had explored for Norway, which did not give up its sovereignty claim to the Sverdrup Islands until 1930 in favor of Canada. Oil has been drilled in many places on the islands since the 1960s .

Classification of the archipelago

The archipelago includes 34 larger and 2,092 smaller and smallest islands, which, with the exception of Ellesmere Island , Devon Island and some islands in Norwegian Bay, are divided into two subgroups, the Sverdrup Islands and the Parry Islands :

island	sub- group	territory	Elevation	Height m	Area km²	Rank Canada	Rank world
Ellesmere Island		Nunavut	Barbeau Peak	2616	196236	3	10
Bathurst Island	Parry	Nunavut	Stokes Mountain	412	16042	13	54
Borden Island	Parry	NWT / Nunavut	...	150	2794	30th	170
Brock Island	Parry	NWT	...	67	764	58	383
Byam Martin Island	Parry	Nunavut	...	150	1150	42	294
Cameron Island	Parry	Nunavut	Mount Wilmot	...	1059	46	312
Coburg Island	Parry	Nunavut	...	823	344	83	...
Cornwallis Island	Parry	Nunavut	...	359	6995	21st	96
Devon Island		Nunavut	Devon Ice Cap	1920	55247	6th	27
Eglinton Island	Parry	NWT	...	150	1541	36	249
Emerald Isle	Parry	NWT	...	150	549	63	466
Lougheed Island	Parry	Nunavut	...	60-110	1308	41	273
Mackenzie King Island	Parry	NWT / Nunavut	Castel Butte	300	5048	26th	115
Melville Island	Parry	Nunavut / NWT	...	776	42149	8th	33
Prince Patrick Island	Parry	NWT	...	279	15848	14th	55
Amund Ringnes Island	Sverdrup	Nunavut	Mountain ridge	265	5255	25th	111
Axel Heiberg Island	Sverdrup	Nunavut	Outlook Peak	2211	43178	7th	32
Cornwall Island	Sverdrup	Nunavut	McLeod Peak	400	2358	31	184
Ellef Ringnes Island	Sverdrup	Nunavut	Isachsen Dome	260	11295	16	69
Graham Island		Nunavut	...	175	1378	38	265
Meighen Island	Sverdrup	Nunavut	...	300	955	50	337
Ile Vanier	Parry	Nunavut	...	200	1126	44	298
King Christian Island	Sverdrup	Nunavut	King Christian Mountain	165	645	60	420
North Kent Island		Nunavut	...	600	590	62	453
Alexander Island	Parry	Nunavut	...	60-180	484	66	...
Massey Island	Parry	Nunavut	...	210	432	71	...
Little Cornwallis Island	Parry	Nunavut	...	...	412	75	...
Helena Island	Parry	Nunavut	...	...	326	85	...
Stor Island	Sverdrup	Nunavut	...	500	313	87	...
Baillie-Hamilton Island	Parry	Nunavut	...	...	290	91	...
Griffith Island	Parry	Nunavut	...	...	189	110	...
Hoved Island	Parry	Nunavut	...	...	158	125	...
Lowther Island	Parry	Nunavut	...	106.5	145	133	...
Buckingham Island		Nunavut	Mount Windsor	150	137	137	...
remaining 2092		Nunavut / NWT	...	...	2321	-	-
Queen Elisabeth			Barbeau Peak	2616	419061	-	-

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Queen Elizabeth Islands ( Memento from August 29, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), The Atlas of Canada (English)