Baffin Island


Baffin Island, in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada, the second-largest island in the Americas, and the fifth-largest island in the world. Its area is with a population density of ; the population was 13,039 according to the 2021 Canadian census; and it is located at. Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, is located on Frobisher Bay on the southern tip of the island.

Name

The Inuktitut name for the island is, which means "very big island" and in Inuktitut syllabics is written as ᕿᑭᖅᑖᓗᒃ. This name is used for the administrative region the island is part of, as well as in multiple places in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, such as some smaller islands: Qikiqtaaluk in Baffin Bay and Qikiqtaaluk in Foxe Basin. Norse explorers are believed to have referred to it as Helluland.
In 1576, English seaman Martin Frobisher, the namesake of Frobisher Bay, made landfall on the island, naming it "Queen Elizabeth's Foreland". The island is named after English explorer William Baffin, who, in 1616, came across the island while trying to discover the Northwest Passage.

Geography

, the capital of Nunavut, is located on the southeastern coast. Until 1987, the town was called Frobisher Bay, after the English name for Frobisher Bay on which it is located, named for Martin Frobisher. That year, the community voted to restore the Inuktitut name.
To the south lies Hudson Strait, separating Baffin Island from mainland Quebec. South of the western end of the island is the Fury and Hecla Strait, which separates the island from the Melville Peninsula on the mainland. To the east are Davis Strait and Baffin Bay, with Greenland beyond. Prince Regent Inlet and the Gulf of Boothia separate the island from the Somerset Island and Boothia Peninsula, respectively. The Foxe Basin, with the Prince Charles Island, is in the southwest. In the north, the Lancaster Sound separates it from the Devon Island and the rest of the Queen Elizabeth Islands.
The Baffin Mountains run along the northeastern coast of the island and are a part of the Arctic Cordillera. The highest peak is Mount Odin, with an elevation of at least, although some sources say. Another peak of note is Mount Asgard, located in Auyuittuq National Park, with an elevation of. Mount Thor, with an elevation of, is said to have the greatest purely vertical drop of any mountain on Earth, at.
The two largest lakes on the island lie in the south-central part of the island: Nettilling Lake and Amadjuak Lake further south.

History

Baffin Island has been inhabited for over 3,000 years, first by the pre-Dorset, followed by the Dorset, and then by the Thule people, ancestors of the Inuit, who have lived on the island for the last thousand years. The Thule people genetically and culturally completely replaced the Dorset people some time after 1300 CE.
In about 986, Erik Thorvaldsson, known as Erik the Red, formed three settlements near the southwestern tip of Greenland. In late 985 or 986, Bjarni Herjólfsson, sailing from Iceland to Greenland, was blown off course and sighted land southwest of Greenland. Bjarni appears to be the first European to see Baffin Island, and the first European to see North America beyond Greenland. About 15 years later the Norse Greenlanders, led by Leif Erikson, a son of Erik the Red, started exploring new areas around the year 1000. Baffin Island is thought to be Helluland, and the archaeological site at Tanfield Valley is thought to have been a trading post. The Saga of Erik the Red, 1880 translation into English by J. Sephton from the original Icelandic :
In September 2008, the Nunatsiaq News, a weekly newspaper, reported that Patricia Sutherland, who worked at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, had found archaeological remains of yarn and cordage string |, rat droppings, tally sticks, a carved wooden Dorset culture face mask depicting Caucasian features, and possible architectural remains, which indicated that European traders and possibly settlers had been on Baffin Island not later than 1000 CE. What the source of this Old World contact may have been is unclear and controversial; the newspaper article states:
Sutherland's research eventually led to a 2012 announcement that whetstones had been found with remnants of alloys indicative of Viking presence. In 2018, Michele Hayeur Smith of Brown University, who specialises in the study of ancient textiles, wrote that she does not think the ancient Arctic people, the Dorset and Thule, needed to be taught how to spin yarn: "It's a pretty intuitive thing to do."
William W. Fitzhugh, director of the Arctic Studies Center at the Smithsonian Institution, and a senior scientist at the National Museum of Natural History, wrote that there is insufficient published evidence to support Sutherland's claims, and that the Dorset were using spun cordage by the 6th century.
In 1992, Elizabeth Wayland Barber wrote that a piece of three-ply yarn that dates to the Paleolithic era, that ended about 10,000 BP, was found at the Lascaux caves in France. This yarn consisted of three s-twist strands that were z-plied, much like the way a three-ply yarn is made now, the Baffin Island yarn was a simple two-ply yarn. The eight sod buildings and artifacts found in the 1960s at L'Anse aux Meadows, located on the northern tip of Newfoundland Island, remains the only confirmed Norse site in North America outside of those found in Greenland.

Administration

Baffin Island is part of the Qikiqtaaluk Region.

Demographics

The population of Baffin Island at the 2021 Canadian census was 13,039 giving a population density of. The population accounts for 67.37 per cent of the 19,355 people in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, 56.51 per cent of the population of the Arctic Archipelago, and 35.38 per cent of the population of Nunavut.
As of the 2016 Canadian census the majority, 74.06 per cent, were Indigenous peoples and 25.83 per cent were non-Indigenous. This compares to 88.85 per cent and 14.12 per cent Indigenous and non-Indigenous people for Nunavut as a whole. This lower percentage of Indigenous peoples on Baffin Island results from Iqaluit being 59.29 per cent Indigenous and 40.65 per cent non-Indigenous. Of the total population 72.17 per cent are Inuit, 0.92 per cent are First Nations, and 0.73 per cent are Métis. Except for a few First Nations people in Arctic Bay all non-Inuit Indigenous peoples live in Iqaluit.
City or hamlet20212016201120062001
Arctic Bay944868823690646
Clyde River1,1811,053934820785
Iqaluit7,4297,7406,6996,1845,236
Kimmirut426389455411433
Nanisivik000077
Pangnirtung1,5041,4811,4251,3251,276
Pond Inlet1,5551,6171,5491,3151,220

The hamlets of Kinngait and Qikiqtarjuaq do not lie on Baffin Island proper. Kinngait is situated on Dorset Island, which is located a few kilometres from the south eastern tip of the Foxe Peninsula. Similarly, Qikiqtarjuaq is situated on Broughton Island, which is located near the northern coast of the Cumberland Peninsula.
The Mary River Mine, an iron ore mine with an estimated 21-year life, at Mary River, may include building a railway and a port to transport the ore. This may create a temporary mining community there.

Wildlife

Baffin Island is home to the Isulijarniq Migratory Bird Sanctuary and the Bowman Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.
The Isulijarniq Migratory Bird Sanctuary, named for J. Dewey Soper, is located on the western side of Baffin Island from Bowman Bay to the Koukdjuak River. It is an area that was classified a wetland of international importance via the Ramsar Convention on May 24, 1982. It is home of the world's largest goose colony and supports a large number of barren-ground caribou.
The Bowman Bay Wildlife Sanctuary is also located on the western side of Baffin Island near Bowman Bay in the Great Plain of the Koukdjuak. It is and is classified as Category IV under the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Baffin Island has both year-round and summer visitor wildlife. On land, examples of year-round wildlife are barren-ground caribou, polar bear, Arctic fox, red fox, Arctic hare, lemming, and Baffin Island wolf.
Barren-ground caribou herds migrate in a limited range from northern Baffin Island down to the southern part in winter, even to the Frobisher Bay peninsula, next to Resolution Island, then migrating back north in the summer. In 2012, a survey of caribou herds found that the local population was only about 5,000, a decrease of as much as 95% from the 1990s.
Arctic hares are found throughout Baffin Island. Their fur is pure white in winter and moults to a scruffy dark grey in summer. Arctic hares and lemmings are an important food source for Arctic and red foxes and Arctic wolves.
Lemmings are also found throughout the island and are a major food source for foxes, wolves and the snowy owl. In the winter, lemmings dig complicated tunnel systems through the snow drifts to get to their food supply of dry grasses and lichens.

Predators

Polar bears can be found all along the coast of Baffin Island but are most prevalent where the sea ice takes the form of pack ice, where their major food sources—ringed seals and bearded seals—live. Polar bears mate approximately every year, bearing one to three cubs around March. Female polar bears may travel inland to find a large snow bank where they dig a den in which to spend the winter and later give birth. The polar bear population here is one of 19 genetically distinct demes of the circumpolar region.
Red foxes can be found predominantly in the southernmost areas of Baffin Island, away from the harshest of winter weather, though some individuals may forage and explore elsewhere. The Arctic foxes can usually be found where polar bears venture on the fast ice close to land in their search for seals. Arctic foxes are scavengers and often follow polar bears to get their leavings. They also are known to take ground-nesting birds and their eggs and chicks, such as ducks, geese, ptarmigan, seagulls, shorebirds and even snowy owls, on occasion. On Baffin Island, Arctic foxes are sometimes trapped by Inuit, but there is no longer a robust fur industry.
The Arctic wolf and the Baffin Island wolf, a grey wolf subspecies, are also year-round residents of Baffin Island. Unlike the grey wolf in southern climes, Arctic wolves often have smaller social networks, due to the barren landscape and minimal resources, thus resulting in unique hierarchies when compared with wolves found further south. For example, Arctic wolves often do not hunt in packs, although a male-female pair may hunt together.