Victoria Island (Canada)


Victoria Island is a large island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago that straddles the boundary between Nunavut and the Northwest Territories of Canada. It is the eighth largest island in the world, and at in area, it is Canada's second largest island. It is nearly double the size of Newfoundland, and is slightly larger than the island of Great Britain but smaller than Honshu. It contains the world's largest island within an island within an island. The western third of the island belongs to the Inuvik Region in the Northwest Territories; the remainder is part of Nunavut's Kitikmeot Region.

History

In 1826 John Richardson saw the southwest coast and called it "Wollaston Land". In 1839 Peter Warren Dease and Thomas Simpson followed its southeast coast and called it "Victoria Land". A map published by John Barrow in 1846 shows a complete blank from these two lands north to "Banks Land" which is the north coast of Banks Island. In 1851 John Rae charted its entire south coast and connected the two "lands". In 1850 and 1851 Robert McClure circumnavigated most of Banks Island, thereby separating it from the rest of Victoria Land. His men also charted the northwest and west coasts of Victoria Island.
One of Roald Amundsen's men, Godfred Hansen, charted its east coast as far as Cape Nansen in 1905, and in 1916 and 1917 Storker T. Storkerson, of Vilhjalmur Stefansson's Canadian Arctic Expedition, charted its northeast coast, discovering the Storkerson Peninsula.
In 2008 Clark Carter and Chris Bray became the first people in history to walk across Victoria Island. Their first attempt in 2005 failed, so they returned and completed the crossing in 2008.

Location and description

lies to the north, and the M'Clintock Channel and Victoria Strait lie eastward. On the west are Amundsen Gulf and Banks Island, which is separated from Victoria by a long sound called the Prince of Wales Strait. To the south lie the Dolphin and Union Strait, Austin Bay, Coronation Gulf and the Dease Strait.
The southern waterways, and sometimes the Prince of Wales Strait, form part of the disputed Northwest Passage which the Government of Canada claims are Canadian Internal Waters, while other nations state they are either territorial waters or international waters.
Victoria Island is an island of peninsulas, having a heavily indented coastline with many inlets. In the east, pointing northwards, is the Storkerson Peninsula, which ends with the Goldsmith Channel, the body of water separating Victoria from Stefansson Island. The Storkerson Peninsula is separated from the island's north-central areas by Hadley Bay, a major inlet. Another, broad peninsula is found in the north, Prince Albert Peninsula. This ends at the Prince of Wales Strait. In the south, and pointing westwards, is the Wollaston Peninsula, separated from the island's central areas by Prince Albert Sound. The island as a whole coincidentally looks like a stylized maple leaf, the main Canadian symbol.
The highest point of Victoria Island is in the Shaler Mountains in the north-central region. Located in the southeast, just north of Cambridge Bay is Ferguson Lake with an area of is the largest lake on the island.
The island is named after Queen Victoria, the Canadian sovereign from 1867 to 1901. The features bearing the name "Prince Albert" are named after her consort.
There is also a smaller Victoria Island in Nunavut, located in Amadjuak Lake on Baffin Island.
The Dolphin-Union caribou herd locally known as Island Caribou are a migratory population of barren-ground caribou, Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus, that occupy Victoria Island in Canada's High Arctic and the nearby mainland. They are endemic to Canada. They migrate across the Dolphin and Union Strait from their summer grazing on Victoria Island to their winter grazing area on the Nunavut-NWT mainland in Canada. It is unusual for North American caribou to seasonally cross sea ice and the only other caribou to do so are the Peary caribou who are smaller in size and population.

Demographics

In the Canada 2016 Census the population of the island was 2,162; 1,766 in Nunavut and 396 in the Northwest Territories. Of the two settlements on the island the larger is Cambridge Bay, which lies on the south-east coast and is in Nunavut. Ulukhaktok is on the west coast and is in the Northwest Territories. Trading posts, such as Fort Collinson on the northwest coast, have long been abandoned.

List of places by population

Maps