Stefansson Island
| Stefansson Island | |
|---|---|
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| Waters | Viscount Melville Sound |
| Geographical location | 73 ° 30 ′ N , 105 ° 30 ′ W |
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| length | 99 km |
| width | 78 km |
| surface | 4th 463 km² |
| Highest elevation | 313 m |
| Residents | uninhabited |
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Stefansson Island is an uninhabited island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago , a few kilometers north of Victoria Island . In the north, Stefansson Island is bordered by the Viscount-Melville-Sound , in the east by the McClintock Channel and in the southwest by the Goldsmith Channel , which separates it from Victoria Island (or its Storkerson Peninsula ), which is less than 400 meters away in places . The almost 100 km long and 4463 km² large island belongs politically to the Canadian territory of Nunavut and takes 27th place among the largest islands in Canada.
The island was discovered in 1917 by participants in an expedition of the polar explorer Vilhjálmur Stefánsson , which they named "Leffingwell Island" after the polar explorer Ernest de Koven Leffingwell (1875–1971), but did not draw them on maps. It was rediscovered in 1946. In 1952 it was given its current name.
The highest point is in the north of the island and is only 313 m high. The landscape of the relatively flat and barren island is characterized by tundra interspersed with many small lakes and ponds . In the more fertile valleys there are small herds of Peary caribou ( Rangifer tarandus peary ) and musk ox ( Ovibos moschatus ).
Web links
- Stefansson Island ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia .
literature
- Fyles, JG Surficial Geology of Victoria and Stefansson Islands, District of Franklin . Ottawa: Roger Duhamel, Queen's Printr, 1963.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Atlas of Canada - Sea Islands ( Memento from January 22, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- ^ William James Mills: Exploring Polar Frontiers: A Historical Encyclopedia . tape 2 . ABC-CLIO, 2003, ISBN 1-57607-422-6 , pp. 675 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- ^ The Atlas of Canada - Toporama