Ellesmere Island

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Ellesmere Island

Ellesmere Island is part of the Qikiqtaaluk Region of the Canadian

Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
territory of Nunavut

Nunavut

Nunavut is the largest and newest Provinces and territories of Canada of Canada; it was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999 via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, though the actual boundaries had been established in 1993....
. Lying within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago

Canadian Arctic Archipelago

The Canadian Arctic Archipelago, also known as just the Arctic Archipelago, is an archipelago north of the Canada mainland in the Arctic. Situated in the northern extremity of North America and covering about , this group of 36,563 islands comprises much of the territory of Northern Canada ? most of Nunavut and part of Northwest Territo...
it is considered part of the Queen Elizabeth Islands

Queen Elizabeth Islands

The Queen Elizabeth Islands are the northernmost cluster of islands in the Canada Canadian Arctic Archipelago, split between Nunavut and Northwest Territories in Northern Canada....
, with Cape Columbia

Cape Columbia

Cape Columbia is the northernmost point of land of Canada, located on Ellesmere Island in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut. It marks the westernmost coastal point of Lincoln Sea in the Arctic Ocean....
being the most northerly point of land in Canada. It comprises an area of , making it the world's tenth largest island

List of islands by area

This is a list of islands in the world ordered by area. It includes all islands with an area greater than 2,500 km? , and several other islands over 500 km? ....
and Canada's third largest island

List of Canadian islands by area

This is a list of Canada islands, as ordered by area. It includes all islands with an area greater than 2,500 Square kilometre; ....
. The Arctic Cordillera

Arctic Cordillera

The Arctic Cordillera is a vast deeply dissected chain of mountains and mountain ranges extending along the northeastern edge of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago from Ellesmere Island to the northeasternmost part of the Ungava Peninsula in northern Labrador and northern Quebec, Canada....
mountain system covers much of Ellesmere Island, making it the most mountainous in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The Arctic willow is the only woody species to grow on Ellesmere Island.

first inhabitants of Ellesmere Island were small bands drawn to the area for Peary caribou

Peary Caribou

The Peary Caribou is a Reindeer subspecies found in the high Arctic islands of Canada's Nunavut and Northwest Territories territories. They are the smallest of the North American caribou, with the females weighing an average of 60 kg and the males 110 kg ....
, muskox, and marine mammal

Marine mammal

Marine mammals are a diverse group of roughly 120 species of mammal that are primarily ocean-dwelling or depend on the ocean for food. They include the cetaceans , the sirenians , the pinnipeds , and several otters ....
hunting about 2000–1000 BC.

As was the case for the Dorset

Dorset culture

The Dorset culture were a Paleo-Eskimo culture that preceded the Inuit culture in Arctic North America. Inuit legends mention the Tuniit or Sivullirmiut , who were driven away by the Inuit....
(or Palaeoeskimo) hunters and the pioneering Neoeskimos, the Post-Ruin Island and Late Thule

Thule people

The Thule or proto-Inuit were the ancestors of all modern Canadian Inuit. They arrived in Alaska from north-eastern Siberia in around the year 500 Anno Domini and Nunavut, Canada in 1000 AD....
culture Inuit

Inuit

Inuit is a general term for a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada, Greenland, Russia and Alaska, United States....
used the Bache Peninsula

Bache Peninsula

Bache Peninsula is a geological formation in Canada, on Ellesmere Island in the Nunavut Territory. The peninsula is considered a cape, meaning that it is a Headlands and bays that dramatically affects the ocean currents....
region extensively both summer and winter until environmental, ecological and possibly social circumstances caused the area to be abandoned.

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Encyclopedia

Ellesmere Island is part of the Qikiqtaaluk Region of the Canadian

Canada

Nunavut

Canadian Arctic Archipelago

Queen Elizabeth Islands

Cape Columbia

List of islands by area

This is a list of islands in the world ordered by area. It includes all islands with an area greater than 2,500 km? , and several other islands over 500 km? ....
and Canada's third largest island

List of Canadian islands by area

This is a list of Canada islands, as ordered by area. It includes all islands with an area greater than 2,500 Square kilometre; ....
. The Arctic Cordillera

Arctic Cordillera

History

The first inhabitants of Ellesmere Island were small bands drawn to the area for Peary caribou

Peary Caribou

Marine mammal

Dorset culture

Thule people

Inuit

Inuit is a general term for a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada, Greenland, Russia and Alaska, United States....
used the Bache Peninsula

Bache Peninsula

Little Ice Age

The Little Ice Age was a period of cooling occurring after a warmer North Atlantic era known as the Medieval Warm Period or Medieval Climate Optimum....
", attesting to its general economic importance as part of the Smith Sound

Smith Sound

Smith Sound is an Arctic sea passage between Greenland and Canada's northernmost island, Ellesmere Island. It links Baffin Bay with Kane Basin and forms part of the Nares Strait....
culture sphere of which it was occasionally a part and sometimes the principal settlement component.

Viking

Viking

A Viking is one of the Norsemen explorers, warriors, merchants, and Piracy who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late eighth to the early eleventh century....
s from the Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is a member country of the Kingdom of Denmark located between the Arctic Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago....
colonies reached Ellesmere Island, Skraeling Island

Skraeling Island

Skraeling Island lies off the east coast of Ellesmere Island in the Canada territory of Nunavut....
and Ruin Island during hunting expeditions and trading with the Inuit groups. Unusual structures on Bache peninsula may be the remains of a late-period Dorset stone longhouse.

The first European to sight the island after the height of the "Little Ice Age" was William Baffin

William Baffin

William Baffin was an England navigator and explorer. Nothing is known of his early life, but it is conjectured that he was born in London of humble origin, and gradually raised himself by his diligence and perseverance....
, in 1616; said "Age" lasted until roughly 1850. Ellesmere Island was named in 1852 by Edward Inglefield's expedition after Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere

Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere

Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere Order of the Garter Privy Council of the United Kingdom was the second son of the George Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland and his wife, Elizabeth Leveson-Gower, Duchess of Sutherland....
. The American

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
expedition led by Adolphus Greely

Adolphus Greely

Adolphus Washington Greely , born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, was an United States geographical pole explorer, a United States Army officer and a recipient of the Medal of Honor....
in 1881 crossed the island from east to west. The Greely expedition found fossil forests on Ellesmere Island in the late 1880s. Stenkul Fiord was first explored in 1902 by Per Schei, a member of Otto Sverdrup

Otto Sverdrup

Otto Neumann Sverdrup was a native of Bindal, Nordland county, Norway, known for his achievements within the areas of Arctic science and exploration....
's 2nd Norwegian Polar Expedition.

The Ellesmere Ice Shelf

Ellesmere Ice Shelf

The former Ellesmere Ice Shelf was the largest ice shelf in the Arctic, encompassing about of the north coast of Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada....
was documented by the British Arctic Expedition

British Arctic Expedition

The British Arctic Expedition of 1875-1876, led by Sir George Strong Nares, was sent by the British Admiralty to attempt to reach the North Pole via Smith Sound....
of 1875–76, in which Lieutenant Pelham Aldrich's party went from Cape Sheridan

Cape Sheridan

Cape Sheridan is on the northeastern coast of Ellesmere Island, Canada situated on the Lincoln Sea in the Arctic Ocean. It is one of the closest points of land to the geographic North Pole, approx to the north, Cape Columbia is however some closer to the Pole....
west to Cape Alert , including the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf

Ward Hunt Ice Shelf

The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf in the Arctic, located on the north coast of Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. During the twentieth century the Ellesmere Ice Shelf broke up into six separate shelves, the largest being Ward Hunt....
. In 1906 Robert Peary

Robert Peary

Robert Edwin Peary was an United States explorer who claimed to have been the first person, on April 6, 1909, to reach the geographic North Pole....
led an expedition in northern Ellesmere Island, from Cape Sheridan along the coast to the western side of Nansen Sound

Nansen Sound

Nansen Sound is a strait in Nunavut territory, Canada, that lies between western Grant Land on Ellesmere Island and Axel Heiberg Island....
(93°W). During Peary's expedition, the Ice Shelf was continuous; a modern estimate is that it covered .

Geography

Protected areas

More than one-fifth of the island is protected as Quttinirpaaq National Park

Quttinirpaaq National Park

Quttinirpaaq National Park is a Canada National Parks of Canada. Located on the northeastern corner of Ellesmere Island in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, the most northerly extent of Canada, it is the second most northerly park on Earth after Northeast Greenland National Park....
(formerly Ellesmere Island National Park Reserve), which includes seven fjord

Fjord

Geologically, a fjord or fiord is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides, created in a valley carved by Glacier....
s and a variety of glacier

Glacier

A glacier is a large, slow-moving mass of ice, formed from compacted layers of snow, that slowly deforms and flows in response to gravity and high pressure....
s, as well as Lake Hazen

Lake Hazen

Lake Hazen is often called the northernmost lake of Canada, in the northern part of Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, but detailed maps show several smaller lakes up to more than 100 km further north on Canada's northernmost island....
, North America's largest lake north of the Arctic Circle

Arctic Circle

The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circle of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. It is the parallel of latitude that runs 66degree 33'39? north of the Equator....
. Barbeau Peak

Barbeau Peak

Barbeau Peak, on Ellesmere Island, is the highest mountain in Nunavut. The mountain is located in Quttinirpaaq National Park. The mountain was named in 1969 for Marius Barbeau, a Canadian anthropologist whose research into Indigenous peoples of the Americas and Inuit cultures gained him international acclaim....
, the highest mountain in Nunavut is located in the British Empire Range

British Empire Range

The British Empire Range is a mountain range on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada. The range is one of the most northern ranges in the world and the Arctic Cordillera, surpassed only by the Challenger Mountains which lies immediately to the northwest and the United States Range slightly further east....
on Ellesmere Island. The most northern mountain range

Mountain range

A mountain range is a chain of mountains bordered by highlands or separated from other mountains by mountain pass or valleys. Individual mountains within the same mountain range do not necessarily have the same geology, though they often do; they may be a mix of different orogeny, for example volcanoes, uplifted mountains or Fold mountains...
in the world, the Challenger Mountains

Challenger Mountains

The Challenger Mountains are a mountain range on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, Canada. The range is the most northern range in the world and of the Arctic Cordillera....
, is located in the northeast region of the island. The northern lobe of the island is called Grant Land

Grant Land

Grant Land is the northern lobe of Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. Situated on the north coast, Cape Columbia, is the northernmost point of Canada, only 770 km from the North Pole, and was used as the final point on land for Robert Peary's North Pole expedition in 1909....
.

In July 2007, a study noted the disappearance of habitat for waterfowl, invertebrates, and algae on Ellesmere Island. According to John P. Smol of Queen's University

Queen's University

Queen's University, generally referred to simply as Queen's, is a coeducational, non-sectarian, research intensive, public university located in Kingston, Ontario, Ontario, Canada....
in Kingston, Ontario

Kingston, Ontario

Kingston, Ontario is a Canadian city located at the eastern end of Lake Ontario, where the lake runs into the St. Lawrence River and the Thousand Islands begin....
, and Marianne S. V. Douglas of the University of Alberta

University of Alberta

The University of Alberta is a Public university research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the top universities in Canada....
in Edmonton

Edmonton

Edmonton is the capital of the Canada Provinces and territories of Canada of Alberta. The city is located on the North Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province, an area with some of the most fertile farmland on the prairies....
, warming conditions and evaporation have caused low water levels changes in the chemistry of ponds and wetlands in the area. The researchers noted that "In the 1980s they often needed to wear hip waders to make their way to the ponds...while by 2006 the same areas were dry enough to burn.

Glaciers and ice caps

Large portions of Ellesmere Island are covered with glaciers and ice, with Manson Icefield and Sydkap in the south; Prince of Wales Icefield and Agassiz Ice Cap

Agassiz Ice Cap

Agassiz Ice Cap is an ice cap on the northern coast of Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada....
along the central-east side of the island, along with substantial ice cover in Northern Ellesmere Island. The northwest coast of Ellesmere Island was covered by a massive, long ice shelf

Ice shelf

An ice shelf is a thick, floating platform of ice that forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a coastline and onto the ocean surface....
until the 20th century. The Ellesmere Ice Shelf was reduced by 90 percent in the twentieth century due to global warming

Global warming

Global warming is the increase in the Instrumental temperature record of the Earth's near-surface air and the oceans since the mid-twentieth century and its projected continuation....
, leaving the separate Alfred Ernest, Ayles, Milne, Ward Hunt, and Markham

Markham Ice Shelf

The Markham Ice Shelf was one of five major ice shelves in Canada, all located on the northern coast of Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. The ice shelf broke off from the coast in early August 2008, becoming adrift in the Arctic Ocean....
Ice Shelves. A 1986 survey of Canadian ice shelves found that of ice calved from the Milne

Milne Ice Shelf

The Milne Ice Shelf, a fragment of the former Ellesmere Ice Shelf, is the second largest ice shelf in the Arctic Ocean.Situated on the north-west coast of Ellesmere Island in northern Canada, it is located about 270 km west of Alert, Nunavut....
and Ayles

Ayles Ice Shelf

The Ayles Ice Shelf was one of six major ice shelves in Canada, all located on the northern coast of Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. The ice shelf broke off from the coast on August 13, 2005, forming a giant ice island thick and measuring around by in size ....
ice shelves between 1959 and 1974. The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, the largest remaining section of thick (>10 m, >30 ft) landfast sea ice along the northern coastline of Ellesmere Island, lost of ice in a massive calving in 1961-1962. It further decreased by 27% in thickness between 1967 and 1999.

The breakup of the Ellesmere Ice Shelves has continued in the 21st century: the Ward Ice Shelf experienced a major breakup during summer 2002; the Ayles Ice Shelf calved entirely on August 13, 2005; the largest breakoff of the ice shelf in 25 years, it may pose a threat to the oil industry in the Beaufort Sea

Beaufort Sea

The Beaufort Sea is the portion of the Arctic Ocean located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska and west of Canadian Arctic islands....
. The piece is . In April 2008, it was discovered that the Ward Hunt shelf was fractured into dozens of deep, multi-faceted cracks and in September 2008 the Markham shelf (50 sq km / 20 square miles) completely broke off to become floating sea-ice.

Paleontology

Schei and later Nathorst

Alfred Gabriel Nathorst

Alfred Gabriel Nathorst was a Sweden Arctic explorer, geology and palaeobotany. Nathorst was born in V?derbrunn outside Nyk?ping and died in Stockholm....
described the Paleocene

Paleocene

The Paleocene or Palaeocene, "early dawn of the recent" is a geologic epoch that lasted from 65.5 ? 0.3 Mega-annum to 55.8 ? 0.2 Ma . It is the first epoch of the Palaeogene Period in the modern Cenozoic era ....
-Eocene

Eocene

The Eocene Geologic time scale is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Palaeogene period in the Cenozoic era....
(ca. 55 Ma) fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or trace fossil of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous Rock formations and sedimentary rock layers is known as the fossil record....
forest in the Stenkul Fiord sediments. The Stenkul Fiord site represents a series of deltaic swamp

River delta

A delta is a landform that is created at the mouth of a river where that river flows into an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, flat arid area, or another river....
and floodplain

Floodplain

||-||-||-||-||-||-||-||}A floodplain, or flood plain, is flat or nearly flat land adjacent to a stream or river that experiences occasional or periodic flooding....
forests. The trees stood for at least 400 years. Individual stumps and stems of >1 m (>3 ft) diameter were abundant. Abundance of Metasequoia

Metasequoia

Metasequoia is a fast growing tree genus in the pinophyta family Cupressaceae of which Metasequoia glyptostroboides, native to the Sichuan-Hubei region of China, is the only living species....
and possibly Glyptostrobus

Glyptostrobus

Glyptostrobus pensilis, also known as Chinese Swamp Cypress, is the sole living species in the genus Glyptostrobus. It is native to subtropical southeastern China, from Fujian west to southeast Yunnan, and also very locally in southern Vietnam....
trees.

In 2006, University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park, Chicago neighborhood of Chicago. Although an older university by the same name existed prior to its founding, the modern University of Chicago credits its founding to the oil magnate John D....
paleontologist

Paleontology

File:Geological time spiral - sharper.pngPaleontology from Greek: pa?a??? "old, ancient", ??, ??t- "being, creature", and ????? "speech, thought" is the study of prehistory life, including organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments ....
Neil H. Shubin reported the discovery of the fossil of a Paleozoic

Paleozoic

The Paleozoic or Palaeozoic Era is the earliest of three geology Era of the Phanerozoic Eon . The Paleozoic spanned from roughly , and is subdivided into six period ; from oldest to youngest they are: the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian period, Carboniferous, and Permian...
(ca. 375 Ma) fish, named Tiktaalik roseae
Tiktaalik

Tiktaalik is a genus of extinction Sarcopterygii fish from the late Devonian period, with many features akin to those of tetrapods . It is an example from several lines of ancient sarcopterygian fish developing adaptations to the oxygen-poor shallow-water habitats of its time, which led to the evolution of amphibians....
, in the former stream bed

Stream bed

A stream bed is the channel bottom of a stream, river or creek; the physical confine of the normal water flow. The lateral confines or channel margins, during all but flood stage, are known as the stream banks or river banks....
s of Ellesmere Island. The fossil exhibits many characteristics of fish, but also indicates a transitional

Transitional fossil

Transitional fossils are the fossilized remains of intermediary forms of life that illustrate an Evolution theory transition. They can be identified by their retention of certain primitive traits in comparison with their more derived relatives, as they are defined in the study of cladistics....
creature that may be a predecessor of amphibian

Amphibian

Amphibians , such as frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and caecilians, are cold-blooded animals that metamorphose from a juvenile, water-breathing form to an adult, air-breathing form....
s, reptile

Reptile

Reptiles, or members of the class Reptilia, are air-breathing, cold-blooded vertebrates that have skin covered in scale as opposed to hair or feathers....
s, dinosaur

Dinosaur

Dinosaurs were the dominant vertebrate animals of Landform ecosystems for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic Period until the end of the Cretaceous Period , when most of them became extinct in the Cretaceous?Tertiary extinction event....
s, mammal

Mammal

Mammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose name is derived from their distinctive feature, mammary glands, with which they feed their young....
s, and eventually human

Human

A human being, also human or man, is a member of a species of bipedalism primates in the family Hominidae . Mitochondrial DNA evidence indicates that modern humans originated in east Africa about 200,000 years ago....
s.

Insect ecology

Ellesmere Island is noted as being the northernmost occurrence of eusocial

Eusociality

Eusociality is a term used for the highest level of social organization in a hierarchical classification. The term "eusocial" was introduced in 1966 by Suzanne Batra and given a more definitive meaning by E....
insects; specifically, the bumblebee

Bumblebee

A bumblebee is any member of the bee genus Bombus, in the family Apidae; there are over 250 known species primarily occurring in the Northern Hemisphere....
Bombus polaris
Bombus polaris

Bombus polaris is an Arctic bumblebee species....
. Interestingly, there is a second species of bumblebee occurring there, Bombus hyperboreus
Bombus hyperboreus

Bombus hyperboreus is a bumblebee species with a circumpolar distribution, found in arctic Canada, Alaska, Greenland, northern Scandinavia and Russia....
, which is a parasite in the nests of B. polaris.

Population

In 2006, the population of Ellesmere Island was recorded as 146. There are three settlements on Ellesmere Island including Alert

Alert, Nunavut

Alert, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada, is the Northernmost settlements permanently inhabited place in the world. It takes its name from HMS Alert , which wintered east of the present station off what is now Cape Sheridan, Nunavut in 1875-1876....
(pop. 5), Eureka

Eureka, Nunavut

Eureka is a small research base on Fosheim Peninsula, Ellesmere Island, Qikiqtaaluk Region, in the Canada territory of Nunavut. It is located on the north side of Slidre Fiord, which enters Eureka Sound farther west....
(pop. 0), and Grise Fiord

Grise Fiord, Nunavut

Grise Fiord, is a small Inuit Hamlet , Qikiqtaaluk Region in the territory of Nunavut, Canada. Despite its smallness, 141 residents as of the Canada 2006 Census, it is the largest community on Ellesmere Island....
(pop. 141). Politically, it is part of the Qikiqtaaluk Region.

Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Alert

CFS Alert

Canadian Forces Station Alert, also CFS Alert, is a Canadian Forces signals intelligence intercept facility located in Alert, Nunavut, Nunavut on the northeastern tip of Ellesmere Island, at ....
is the northernmost settlement

Northernmost settlements

Some of the northernmost settlements in the world are:...
in the world. With the end of the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state of conflict, tension and competition that existed between a number of world powers, including the United States, the Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, France, United Kingdom and those countries' respective allies from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s....
and the advent of new technologies allowing for remote interpretation of data, the overwintering population has been reduced to 50.

Eureka, which is the second northernmost settlement in the world, consists of three areas, "Eureka Airport" which includes "Fort Eureka" (the quarters for military personnel maintaining the island's communications equipment), the Environment Canada

Environment Canada

Environment Canada , legally incorporated as the Department of the Environment under the Department of the Environment Act , is the Ministry of the Government of Canada with responsibility for coordinating environmental policies and programs as well as preserving and enhancing the natural environment and conservation of wildlife....
Weather Station and the Polar Environmental Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL), formally the Arctic Stratospheric Ozone (AStrO) Observatory.

External links

by Geoffrey Hattersley-Smith
Geoffrey Hattersley-Smith

Geoffrey Francis Hattersley-Smith Doctor of Philosophy, Royal Society of Canada is an England born geologist and glacier. He attended Winchester College in Hampshire and graduated from New College, Oxford, Oxford....

Ellesmere Island

History

Geography

Protected areas

Glaciers and ice caps

Paleontology

Insect ecology

Population

See also

External links

Further reading