Ward Hunt Island
Ward Hunt Iceland is a small island north of Ellesmere Iceland in the Canadian Arctic and heard as those of the Queen Elizabeth Islands. Administratively, the island belongs to the region of the territory of Nunavut Qikiqtaaluk.
Geography
Ward Hunt Iceland is embedded in the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, about 5 km north of Ellesmere Iceland in the mouth of Disraeli Fjord in the Arctic Ocean. The northern tip of the island is located at 83 ° 5 ' 50 "N, 74 ° 14' 0 " W83.097222222222 - 74.233333333333. Thus, the island is one of the northernmost land mass of Canada. Only the northern coast of the Arthur Laing Peninsula to Cape Columbia is located further north over a length of approximately 17 km.
The island is 6.5 km long, up to 3.3 km wide and partly glaciated. They reached the Walker Hill in the west a height of 415 meters above the sea. The eastern part of the island is characterized by a lower, unnamed elevation of 239 m. Between the two halves of the island is a shallow bowl, so it is a double island. In contrast to the northern part of Ellesmere Ward Hunt Iceland Iceland is not part of Quttinirpaaq National Park. An expansion of the National Park on the territory of the island in the next few years, however, is planned.
The building of the former research station Ward Hunt Iceland Camp are as refuges for the few visitors. In the vicinity there is a landing pad for Twin Otter machines.
History
The island was named in 1876 by Pelham Aldrich, a participant of the British Arctic Expedition of 1875-1876 under George Nares and later admiral in the Royal Navy, and discovered by the British statesman George Ward Hunt. As part of the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958) was operated on Ward Hunt Iceland a weather station. Built in 1959, the Canadian Defense Research Board (DRB ) on the island research station, which remained in operation until the late 1960s. Because of her - with around 770 km distance - relative proximity to the North Pole, the island was the starting point for numerous expeditions to the North Pole, for example, that of Ralph Plaisted ( 1927-2008 ) 1968 2002 and again in 2008 broke parts of the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf near the. island from. A portion of the ice shelf sat down as so-called " ice island " firmly off the north coast of Iceland Ward Hunt. This preliminary stationary because aground iceberg with a surface area of 35.9 km ² is shown on some maps as mainland misleading. It extends with its northern tip at 83 ° 8 ' 12 " N, 74 ° 6' 49 " W83.136666666667 - 74.113611111111 although further north than Cape Columbia (83 ° 6 ' 41 "N, 69 ° 57 ' 30" W83.111388888889 -69.958333333333 ), but is not the mainland.