Queen Elizabeth Islands
The Queen Elizabeth Islands are the northernmost cluster of islands in Canada's Arctic Archipelago, split between Nunavut and the Northwest Territories in Northern Canada. The Queen Elizabeth Islands contain approximately 14% of the global glacier and ice cap area. The southern islands are called the Parry Islands or Parry Archipelago.
Geography
The islands, together in area, were renamed as a group after Elizabeth II on her coronation as Queen of Canada in 1953. The islands cover an area approximately the shape of a right triangle, bounded by the Nares Strait on the east, Parry Channel on the south and the Arctic Ocean to the north and west. Most are uninhabited although the Natural Resources Canada's Climate Change Geoscience Program Earth Sciences Sector, has monitors on the islands. In 1969 Panarctic Oils, now part of Suncor Energy, began operating exploration oil wells in the Franklinian and Sverdrup basins and planned on establishing its resource base in the Queen Elizabeth Islands. It ceased production in the 1970s. At the 2013 GeoConvention the Arctic Islands region were called Canada's perpetual "last petroleum exploration frontier". Hogg and Enachescu argued that the development and implementation of advanced marine and land seismic technologies in Alaska, Northern Europe and Siberia could be modified for use in the Queen Elizabeth Islands.Queen Elizabeth Islands had not been fully charted until the British Northwest Passage expeditions and later Norwegian exploration of the 19th century.
These islands were known as the Parry Archipelago for over 130 years. They were first named after British Arctic explorer Sir William Parry, who sailed there in 1820, aboard the Hecla. Since the renaming of the archipelago in 1953, the term Parry Islands continued to be used for its southwestern part. The regional break down of the archipelago is therefore as follows:
- Ellesmere Island
- Sverdrup Islands
- Parry Islands
The islands lay on top of and were formed by the movement of the Queen Elizabeth Islands Subplate.
Major islands
Many of the islands are among the largest in the world, the largest being Ellesmere Island. Other major islands include Amund Ringnes Island, Axel Heiberg Island, Bathurst Island, Borden Island, Cornwall Island, Cornwallis Island, Devon Island, Eglinton Island, Ellef Ringnes Island, Mackenzie King Island, Melville Island, and Prince Patrick Island.Smaller islands
Other smaller but notable islands include; Beechey Island, which held the graves of Petty Officer John Torrington, Royal Marine Private William Braine, and Able Seaman John Hartnell, three members of Sir John Franklin's crew who took part in his lost expedition, Hans Island, a small, uninhabited barren knoll measuring whose ownership was disputed by Canada and Denmark until 14 June 2022, when both countries agreed to split the disputed island roughly in half., the Cheyne Islands, three small islands that are Important Bird Area and a Key Migratory Bird Terrestrial Habitat site and Skraeling Island an important archaeological site where Inuit and Norse artifacts have been found. They consist of Silurian and Carboniferous rocks covered with tundra.Population
With a population of less than 400, the islands are nearly uninhabited. There are only three permanently inhabited places in the islands. The two municipalities are the hamlets of Resolute, on Cornwallis Island, and Grise Fiord, on Ellesmere Island. Alert is a weather station staffed by Environment and Climate Change Canada, a Global Atmosphere Watch atmosphere monitoring laboratory on Ellesmere Island, and has several temporary inhabitants due to the co-located CFS Alert. Eureka, a small research base on Ellesmere Island, has a population of zero but at least eight staff on a continuous rotational basis.| Name | Image | Type | Island | Population | Established | Coordinates | Notes |
| Alert | Weather station, Canadian Forces base, airport | Ellesmere | 5 | 1950 |
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| Alexandra Fiord | Research station | Ellesmere | 0 | 1953 |
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| Camp Hazen | Warden station | Ellesmere | 0 | 1957 |
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| Cape Columbia Depot | North Pole expedition depot | Ellesmere | 0 | 1909 |
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| Cape Sheridan | North Pole expedition wintering site | Ellesmere | 0 | 1908 |
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| Craig Harbour | Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment | Ellesmere | 0 | 1922 |
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| Dundas Harbour | Outpost, RCMP detachment | Devon | 0 | 1924 |
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| Eureka | Weather station, research station, aerodrome | Ellesmere | 0 | 1947 |
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| Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station | Research station | Devon | 0 | 1999 |
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| Fort Conger | Research station | Ellesmere | 0 | 1883 |
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| Grise Fiord | Hamlet, airport | Ellesmere | 129 | 1953 | |||
| Isachsen | Weather station, research station | Ellef Ringnes | 0 | 1948 | |||
| McGill Arctic Research Station | Research station | Axel Heiberg | 0 | 1959 | |||
| Mould Bay | Weather station | Prince Patrick | 0 | 1948 | |||
| Resolute | Hamlet, airport | Cornwallis | 229 | 1947 |
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| Tanquary Fiord | Warden station | Ellesmere | 0 | ?? |
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| Ward Hunt Island | Warden station | Ward Hunt Island | 0 | 1960s? |
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Abandoned settlements are Dundas Harbour on Devon Island and Craig Harbour on Ellesmere Island.
Administration
Until 1999, the Queen Elizabeth Islands were part of the Baffin Region of the Northwest Territories.With the creation of Nunavut in 1999 all islands and fractions of islands of the archipelago east of the 110th meridian west became part of the Qikiqtaaluk Region of the new territory, which was the major portion of the archipelago. The rest remained with the now-reduced Northwest Territories. Borden Island, Mackenzie King Island and Melville Island were divided between the two territories.
Prince Patrick Island, Eglinton Island and Emerald Island are the only notable islands that are now completely part of the Northwest Territories.
Below the level of the territory, there is the municipal level of administration. On that level, there are only two municipalities, Resolute and Grise Fiord, with an aggregate area of , but with most of the population of the archipelago. The remaining 99.89 percent are unincorporated area, with a census 2021 population of zero, albeit a fluctuating population centred in Alert and Eureka, Nunavut.
Overview of the islands
According to the Atlas of Canada there are 34 larger and 2,092 smaller islands in the archipelago. With the exception of Ellesmere Island, they fall into two groups, the Sverdrup Islands and the Parry Islands:| Island | sub- group | Territory | Peak | Height m | Height ft | Area km2 | Area sq mi | Rank Canada | Rank World | Coordinates |
| Alexander | Parry | NU | average elevation | align="right" | align="right" | 66 | - | - | ||
| Amund Ringnes | Sverdrup | NU | ridge | align="right" | align="right" | 25 | 111 | - | - | |
| Axel Heiberg | Sverdrup | NU | Outlook Peak | align="right" | align="right" | 7 | 32 | - | - | |
| Baillie-Hamilton Island | Parry | NU | align="right" | align="right" | 91 | - | - | |||
| Bathurst | Parry | NU | Stokes Mountain | align="right" | align="right" | 13 | 54 | - | - | |
| Borden | Parry | NU/NT | align="right" | align="right" | 30 | 170 | - | - | ||
| Brock | Parry | NT | align="right" | align="right" | 58 | 383 | - | - | ||
| Buckingham Island | Parry | NU | Mount Windsor | align="right" | align="right" | 137 | - | - | ||
| Byam Martin | Parry | NU | align="right" | align="right" | 42 | 294 | - | - | ||
| Cameron | Parry | NU | Mount Wilmot | align="right" | 46 | 312 | - | |||
| Coburg Island | Parry | NU | align="right" | align="right" | 83 | - | - | |||
| Cornwall | Sverdrup | NU | McLeod Peak | align="right" | align="right" | 31 | 184 | - | - | |
| Cornwallis | Parry | NU | align="right" | align="right" | 21 | 96 | - | - | ||
| Devon | Parry | NU | Devon Ice Cap | align="right" | align="right" | 6 | 27 | - | - | |
| Eglinton | Parry | NT | align="right" | align="right" | 36 | 249 | - | - | ||
| Ellef Ringnes | Sverdrup | NU | Isachsen Dome | align="right" | align="right" | 16 | 69 | - | - | |
| Ellesmere | NU | Barbeau Peak | align="right" | align="right" | 3 | 10 | - | - | ||
| Emerald Isle | Parry | NT | align="right" | align="right" | 63 | 466 | - | - | ||
| Graham | Sverdrup | NU | align="right" | align="right" | 38 | 265 | - | - | ||
| Griffith Island | Parry | NU | align="right" | 110 | - | |||||
| Helena Island | Parry | NU | average in southern hills | align="right" | align="right" | 85 | - | - | ||
| Hoved Island | Parry | NU | align="right" | 125 | - | |||||
| Île Vanier | Parry | NU | align="right" | align="right" | 44 | 298 | - | - | ||
| King Christian | Sverdrup | NU | King Christian Mountain | align="right" | align="right" | 60 | 420 | - | - | |
| Little Cornwallis Island | Parry | NU | align="right" | 75 | - | |||||
| Lougheed | Parry | NU | align="right" | align="right" | 41 | 273 | - | - | ||
| Lowther Island | Parry | NU | raised beach | align="right" | align="right" | 133 | - | - | ||
| Mackenzie King | Parry | NU/NT | Castel Butte | align="right" | align="right" | 26 | 115 | - | - | |
| Massey | Parry | NU | align="right" | align="right" | 71 | - | - | |||
| Meighen | Sverdrup | NU | align="right" | align="right" | 50 | 337 | - | - | ||
| Melville | Parry | NU/NT | align="right" | align="right" | 8 | 33 | - | - | ||
| North Kent | Parry | NU | align="right" | align="right" | 62 | 453 | - | - | ||
| Prince Patrick | Parry | NT | align="right" | align="right" | 14 | 55 | - | - | ||
| Stor Island | Sverdrup | NU | align="right" | align="right" | 87 | - | - | |||
| remaining 2,092 islands | NU/NT | align="right" | ... | ... | - | |||||
| Queen Elizabeth | NU/NT | Barbeau Peak | align="right" | align="right" | ... | ... | - | - |