Herschel Island

Herschel Iceland or Qikiqtaruk is a Canadian island in the Beaufort Sea, which is part of the Arctic Ocean. The island is the northernmost part of the territory Yukon, it is five kilometers off the mainland, about 150 kilometers west of the delta of the Mackenzieflusses and 70 kilometers east of the Alaska border. The island is 112 km ²; it has a maximum length of about 18 km and a maximum width of about 11 km, is the highest elevation reaches 182 m. From the mainland the island is separated by the Workboat Passage.

Since Herschel Iceland lies within the Arctic circle, appears during the summer from 19 May to 24 July throughout the sun, in winter there from November 29 to January 14, polar night, around Christmas time with twilight at noon.

History

The first European who sighted the island, was Sir John Franklin, who obtained it in 1826 and after his friend, the scientist Sir John Herschel, named. At that time there were three settlements of the Inuvialuit ( Kigirktaugmiut ) on the island. Estimates of the total number of residents in the far north fluctuate between 200 and 2000. You were in possession of Russian goods, which they had acquired through barter with the Inupiat of Alaska. They acted together with the Gwich'in in the Mackenzie Delta and in the area of the Porcupine River.

Between 1890 and 1907 the island had up to 1,500 residents, many of them whalers, with the largest settlement Pauline Cove on the east coast of the island.

Applicable under the mid-20th century political orientations, the Inuit of Herschel Iceland in the communities of Aklavik and Inuvik were resettled. The station was built in 1903 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was closed in 1964. In the 1970s there was again activities on the island, as Pauline Cove was used as a safe haven for oil search ships; today is a eingemottetes search ship here. The last permanent residents left the island, as these 1987 part of the 116 km ² large Herschel Iceland - Qikiqtaruk Territorial Park was; since then, only the park ranger in the summer months to keep here.

During the summer visitors arrive by cruise ships or chartered in Inuvik seaplanes here to visit the former settlement of buildings that now serve as a museum. Interest also find the Walfängergräber and it's animals (birds, caribou, arctic foxes and occasionally polar bears ). From November to June, when the surrounding sea is frozen, land animals migrate between the island and the mainland.

In 1993 and again In 2003, the German adventure travelers Arved Fuchs in his crossings of the Northwest Passage on Herschel Iceland station.