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1 results

  • 14 - Canada and the High Arctic Islands, 1880–1950

  • Edited by Adrian Howkins, University of Bristol, Peder Roberts, University of Stavanger
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Polar Regions
    Published online:
    24 March 2023
    Print publication:
    11 May 2023, pp 325-353

  • Summary

    Of all the north circumpolar lands, only Greenland extends farther towards the top of the globe than the uppermost reaches of the Arctic Archipelago. Politicians and media commentators regularly extol Canada’s identity as a northern nation, yet this area’s official name since 1954 – the Queen Elizabeth Islands – is not widely known or often used, and most citizens’ knowledge of High Arctic geography is rather vague. Only the military station at Alert on the north coast of Ellesmere Island, about 800 km from the pole, stands out clearly amid the general blur.

    The High Arctic region’s southern boundary is Parry Channel, the major east–west waterway through the archipelago, in latitude 74° north. Parry Channel also divides the islands where Indigenous people have lived continuously for millennia from those that were abandoned during the harsh climatic conditions of the Little Ice Age (which lasted roughly from 1300 to 1850 ad).