The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The eastern route along the Arctic coasts of Norway and Siberia is accordingly called the Northeast Passage (NEP). The various islands of the archipelago are separated from one another and from Mainland Canada by a series of Arctic waterways collectively known as the Northwest Passages, Northwestern Passages or the Canadian Internal Waters.
Victoria Island is a large island in the Arctic Archipelago that straddles the boundary between Nunavut and the Northwest Territories of Canada. It is the eighth-largest island in the world, and at 217,291 km2 (83,897 sq mi) in area, it is Canada's second-largest island. It is nearly double the size of Newfoundland (111,390 km2 [43,010 sq mi]), and is slightly larger than the island of Great Britain (209,331 km2 [80,823 sq mi]) but smaller than Honshu (225,800 km2 [87,200 sq mi]). The western third of the island lies in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories; the remainder is part of Nunavut's Kitikmeot Region. The population of 2,168 is divided among 2 settlements, the larger of which is in Nunavut and the other of which is in the Northwest Territories.
The Arctic Archipelago, also known as the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, is an archipelago lying to the north of the Canadian continental mainland, excluding Greenland and Iceland.
John Rae was a Scottish surgeon who explored parts of northern Canada.
Ukkusiksalik National Park is a national park in Nunavut, Canada. It covers 20,885 km2 (8,064 sq mi) of tundra and coastal mudflats south of the Arctic Circle and the hamlet of Naujaat, from Hudson Bay's Roes Welcome Sound towards the western Barrenlands and the source of Brown River. The park surrounds Wager Bay, a 100 km (62 mi)-long inlet on the Hudson Bay. Although the smallest of Nunavut's four national parks, it is the sixth largest in Canada. Its name relates to steatite found there: Ukkusiksalik means "where there is material for the stone pot".
Sir John Franklin was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. After serving in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through the islands of the Arctic Archipelago, in 1819 and 1825, and served as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1839 to 1843. During his third and final expedition, an attempt to traverse the Northwest Passage in 1845, Franklin's ships became icebound off King William Island in what is now Nunavut, where he died in June 1847. The icebound ships were abandoned ten months later and the entire crew died, from causes such as starvation, hypothermia, and scurvy.
HMS Erebus was a Hecla-class bomb vessel constructed by the Royal Navy in Pembroke dockyard, Wales, in 1826. The vessel was the second in the Royal Navy named after Erebus, the personification of darkness in Greek mythology.
King William Island is an island in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut, which is part of the Arctic Archipelago. In area it is between 12,516 km2 (4,832 sq mi) and 13,111 km2 (5,062 sq mi) making it the 61st-largest island in the world and Canada's 15th-largest island. Its population, as of the 2021 census, was 1,349, all of whom live in the island's only community, Gjoa Haven.
Coronation Gulf lies between Victoria Island and mainland Nunavut in Canada. To the northwest it connects with Dolphin and Union Strait and thence the Beaufort Sea and Arctic Ocean; to the northeast it connects with Dease Strait and thence Queen Maud Gulf.
Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier was an Irish officer of the Royal Navy and polar explorer who participated in six expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. In May 1845, he was second-in-command to Sir John Franklin and captain of HMS Terror during the Franklin expedition to discover the Northwest Passage, which ended with the loss of all 129 crewmen in mysterious circumstances.
Bathurst Inlet,, is a small Inuit community located in Bathurst Inlet in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut, Canada.
The history of the Northwest Territories covers the period from thousands of years ago to the present day. Prior to European colonization, the lands that encompass present-day Northwest Territories were inhabited for millennia by several First Nations. European explorers and fur traders began to explore the region since the late-16th century. By the 17th century, the British laid claim to both the North-Western Territory and Rupert's Land; and granted the Hudson's Bay Company a commercial fur trade monopoly over the latter region.
Franklin's lost expedition was a failed British voyage of Arctic exploration led by Captain Sir John Franklin that departed England in 1845 aboard two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, and was assigned to traverse the last unnavigated sections of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic and to record magnetic data to help determine whether a better understanding could aid navigation. The expedition met with disaster after both ships and their crews, a total of 129 officers and men, became icebound in Victoria Strait near King William Island in what is today the Canadian territory of Nunavut. After being icebound for more than a year Erebus and Terror were abandoned in April 1848, by which point Franklin and nearly two dozen others had died. The survivors, now led by Franklin's second-in-command, Francis Crozier, and Erebus's captain, James Fitzjames, set out for the Canadian mainland and disappeared, presumably having perished.
Franklin Bay is a large inlet in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is a southern arm of the Amundsen Gulf, southeastern Beaufort Sea. The bay measures 48 kilometres (30 mi) long, and 40 kilometres (25 mi) wide at its mouth. The Parry Peninsula is to the east, and its southern area is called Langton Bay.
Cape Bathurst is a cape and a peninsula located on the northern coast of the Northwest Territories in Canada. Cape Bathurst is the northernmost point of mainland Northwest Territories and one of the few peninsulas in mainland North America protruding above the 70th parallel north. The first European to see the area was John Richardson, who also named it, in 1826. Some coast areas of Cape Bathurst are being eroded at a rate of 10 m (33 ft) a year.
The Rae–Richardson Arctic expedition of 1848 was an early British effort to determine the fate of the lost Franklin Polar Expedition. Led overland by Sir John Richardson and John Rae, the party explored the accessible areas along Franklin's proposed route near the Mackenzie and Coppermine rivers. No contact with Franklin's party was achieved and Rae later interviewed the Inuit of the region, from whom he obtained credible accounts that the desperate remnants of Franklin's party had resorted to cannibalism. This revelation was so unpopular that Rae was shunned by the Admiralty and popular opinion; the search for Franklin continued for several years.
Kendall Island is one of the irregularly shaped, uninhabited Canadian arctic islands in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is located in Mackenzie Bay at the northern tip of the Mackenzie River Delta. Richards Island is to the southwest of Kendall Island. Kugmallit Bay is bounded by Garry, Pelly Island and Kendall Islands. The northeast portion of the island is high.
Braya pilosa is a long-lived perennial flowering plant of the mustard family known by the common name hairy braya. It has one to many stems 4–12 cm long, erect to ascending to almost prostrate and moderately to densely hairy, and can be distinguished from other Braya species by its large flowers and globose fruits with very long styles. The plant arises from a tuft of basal leaves, with white flowers arranged in dense clusters. Its range is limited to the unglaciated portions of Cape Bathurst and Baillie Islands on the shore of the Beaufort Sea in the Northwest Territories, and it is listed at G2 - imperiled by NatureServe and endangered by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). Its chief threats are loss of habitat through rapid coastal erosion and saline wash from storm surges, and by melting permafrost.
The Mackenzie River expedition of 1825–1827 was the second of three Arctic expeditions led by explorer John Franklin and organized by the Royal Navy. Its goal was the exploration of the North American coast between the mouths of the Mackenzie and Coppermine rivers and Bering Strait, in what is now present-day Alaska, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. Franklin was accompanied by George Back and John Richardson, both of whom he had previously collaborated with in the disastrous Coppermine expedition of 1819–1821. Unlike Franklin's previous expedition, this one was largely successful, and resulted in the mapping of more than 1,000 km (620 mi) of new coastline between the Coppermine River and Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, an area that until then had remained largely unexplored by Europeans.
