Queen Elizabeth Islands
- Nunavut
- Northwest Territories
- Quebec
- Greenland
The Queen Elizabeth Islands (English Queen Elizabeth Islands, French Îles de la Reine Élisabeth - ) form the north of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, north of Lancastersundes and Viscount Melville Sound. Politically they belong mainly to the territory of Nunavut and to a lesser extent to the Northwest Territories. The 34 main islands and 2092 smaller islands cover a total area of 419,061 km ².
Population
With less than 400 inhabitants, the Queen Elizabeth Islands are virtually uninhabited. The only significant settlements are Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Iceland ( 229 inhabitants to the 2006 census ) and Grise Fiord on Ellesmere Iceland (141 inhabitants). Otherwise, there is the station alert with a permanent crew of 5
Occupied only during the summer are Eureka and Camp Hazen on Ellesmere Island and the McGill Station on Axel Heiberg Iceland and the Flash Line Mars Arctic Research Station ( FMARS ) on Devon Iceland.
Formerly inhabited stations are Mould Bay on Prince Patrick Island, Isachsen on Ellef Ringnes Iceland, Fort Conger on Ellesmere Iceland, and Ward Hunt Ward Hunt at Camp Iceland Iceland.
Former, now abandoned settlements are Dundas Harbour on Devon Iceland and Craig Harbour on Ellesmere Iceland.
Management
By 1999, the Queen Elizabeth Islands were part of the Franklin District of the Northwest Territories of Canada.
With the establishment of the territory of Nunavut in 1999 all the islands and parts of islands in the archipelago east of longitude 110 ° west were added to the Qikiqtaaluk region of the new territory, ie the majority of the archipelago. The rest remained in the Northwest Territories. Averages of the new frontier, the islands Borden, Mackenzie King and Melville. All the way to the Northwest Territories are of the larger islands only Prince Patrick, Eglinton, Emerald and Brock.
History
As the discoverer of William Baffin Islands, pushed forward the 1615-1616 first in the island region, and William Edward Parry, (1819-1820) came 200 years later again to the islands of the Canadian Archipelago in search of a Northwest Passage apply. According to him, they were referred to in 1954 as the Parry Islands; then they were renamed in honor of Queen Elizabeth II. Important exploring and mapping out were made in the course of numerous search expeditions for the lost Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin middle of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century the Norwegian Otto Sverdrup contributed greatly to the exploration of the islands, especially the eponymous island group in. Sverdrup took the lands explored by him for Norway in possession, which gave up its territorial claim to the Sverdrup Islands in 1930 in favor of Canada. Since the 1960s, many places on the islands drilled for oil.
Division of the archipelago
For the island group includes 34 larger and smaller in 2092 and smallest islands with the exception of Iceland Ellesmere, Devon Iceland and some islands in the Norwegian Bay into two subgroups, the Sverdrup Islands and the Parry Islands, divided: