Griffith Island (Nunavut)

For other uses, see Griffith Island (disambiguation).

Griffith Island lies within the Arctic Archipelago in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of northern Canada's territory of Nunavut. It is one of the mid-channel islands in the western sector of Barrow Strait.^[1]

Griffith Island

Griffith Island Show map of Nunavut Griffith Island Show map of Canada
Geography
Location	Northern Canada
Coordinates	74°35′N 095°30′W
Archipelago	Queen Elizabeth Islands Arctic Archipelago
Area	189 km2 (73 sq mi)
Administration
Canada
Territory	Nunavut
Demographics
Population	Uninhabited

Griffith Island lies directly across from the Inuit hamlet Resolute on Cornwallis Island, separated by the 6.5 mi (10.5 km) wide Resolute Passage.^[2]

Captain Horatio Austin, on board the ship Resolute and seeking the lost Sir John Franklin expedition, wintered off Griffith Island in 1851. Explorations that winter by second master, George F. McDougall, included McDougall Sound, the waterway to the north of Griffith Island.^[3]

Griffith Island is 18 by 11 km (11.2 by 6.8 mi),^[4] and 189 km² (73 sq mi) in area.^[5]

Since 1958, the southeast coast of Griffith Island has experienced uncommon change, from discontinuous flying spits to continuous fringing barriers.^[6]

On April 25, 2021, a Great Slave Helicopters owned helicopter that was surveying polar bear populations crashed on Griffith Island, killing all three on board.^[7]

References

1. Bourne, Charles B. (1963). Canadian Yearbook of International Law. Vancouver: Publication Centre, University of British Columbia. p. 101. ISBN 978-0-7748-0127-0. OCLC 2442067.
2. Pharand, Donat; Legault, L.H. (1984). The Northwest Passage: Arctic Straits. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. p. 7. ISBN 90-247-2979-3.
3. Bray, E. F. d., & Barr, W. (1992). A Frenchman in search of Franklin: de Bray's Arctic journal, 1852-1854. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 48–50. ISBN 0-8020-2813-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
4. "Griffith Island". The Columbia Gazetteer of North America. 2000. Retrieved 2008-04-29.
5. "Queen Elizabeth Islands". nrcan.gc.ca. 2008-03-19. Archived from the original on 2013-01-22. Retrieved 2008-04-29.
6. St. Hilaire, D.; Bell, T.; Forbes, D.L.; Taylor, R.B. (December 11–14, 2007). "Arctic coastal dynamics under changing relative sea-level and environmental forcing, Arctic Archipelago" (PDF). ArcticNet 2007 Annual Scientific Meeting. Collingwood, Ontario. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 25, 2013. Retrieved 2008-04-29.
7. 3 dead in helicopter crash near Resolute Bay, Nunavut

Further reading

• Dyke, A. S. (1993). "Glacial and sea level history of Lowther and Griffith Islands, Northwest Territories: A hint of tectonics" (PDF). Géographie physique et Quaternaire. 47 (2): 133–145. doi:10.7202/032944ar.

External links

• Aerial photo, August 1965
• Griffith Island Archived 2014-04-07 at the Wayback Machine in the Atlas of Canada - Toporama; Natural Resources Canada