The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea lane between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Arctic Archipelago of Canada. 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)1 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 between two settlements, the larger of which is Cambridge Bay (Nunavut) and the other Ulukhaktok.
John Rae was a Scottish surgeon who explored parts of northern Canada. He was a pioneer explorer of the Northwest Passage.
Sir John Franklin was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer and colonial administrator. After serving in the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through the islands of the Arctic Archipelago, during the Coppermine expedition of 1819 and the Mackenzie River expedition of 1825, and served as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1837 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.
Sir John Richardson FRS FRSE was a Scottish naval surgeon, naturalist and Arctic explorer.
Bathurst Island is one of the Queen Elizabeth Islands in Nunavut, Canada. It is a member of the Arctic Archipelago. An uninhabited island, the area is estimated at 16,042 km2 (6,194 sq mi), 185 to 188 km long and from 101 km (63 mi) to 116 km (72 mi) to 149.5 km (92.9 mi) wide, making it Canada's 13th largest island. It is located between Devon Island and Cornwallis Island in the east, and Melville Island in the west. Four small islands of Cameron, Vanier, Massey and Alexander lie in its northwest.
Melville Peninsula is a large peninsula in the Canadian Arctic north of Hudson Bay. To the east is Foxe Basin and to the west the Gulf of Boothia. To the north the Fury and Hecla Strait separates it from Baffin Island. To the south Repulse Bay and Frozen Strait separate it from Southampton Island at the north end of Hudson Bay. On the southwest it is connected to the mainland by the Rae Isthmus, named after the Arctic explorer John Rae.
Wales Island is one of the uninhabited Canadian arctic islands in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut. Located 1.5 kilometres off the Melville Peninsula, the island is situated in Committee Bay within western Gulf of Boothia. It has an area of 1,137 square kilometres.
Kennedy Channel is an Arctic sea passage between Greenland and Canada's most northerly island, Ellesmere Island.
Ushakov Island is an isolated island located in the Arctic Ocean, Russian Federation.
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 two dozen men, including Franklin, 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.
Buckingham Island is a Canadian arctic island located in Norwegian Bay in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. The island lies immediately southwest of Graham Island and 50 km (31 mi) east of Cornwall Island. Buckingham Island is 10 km (6.2 mi) wide and has an area of 137 km2 (53 sq mi). It is a part of the Queen Elizabeth Islands.
The Wollaston Peninsula is a west-pointing peninsula located on southwestern Victoria Island, Canada. It is bordered by Prince Albert Sound to the north, Amundsen Gulf to the west and Dolphin and Union Strait to the south. Most of the peninsula lies in Nunavut's Kitikmeot Region but a smaller portion lies within the Northwest Territories's Inuvik Region. The peninsula is 225 km (140 mi) long, and between 97 and 113 km wide. Its westernmost point is Cape Baring. In 1826, its south coast was seen by John Richardson and his surveyor Edward Nicholas Kendall, and was named Wollaston Land, in honour of the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston, who discovered the elements palladium and rhodium. In 1851, John Rae went along most of its coast and proved that "Wollaston Land" was connected to that was called "Victoria Land" to the east.
Thomas Simpson was a Scottish Arctic explorer, Hudson's Bay Company fur trader, and cousin of Company Governor Sir George Simpson. He helped chart the northern coasts of Canada. He died by violence near the Turtle River while traveling through the wilderness in what is now the U.S. state of North Dakota but was then part of the Territory of Iowa. The circumstances of his final hours—in which he allegedly killed himself after gunning down two companions—have long been a subject of controversy.
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 km (30 mi) long, and 40 km (25 mi) wide at its mouth. The Parry Peninsula is to the east, and its southern area is called Langton Bay.
The Baillie Islands are located off the north coast of Cape Bathurst in the Northwest Territories, Canada. The islands formed part of the area used by the Avvaqmiut who are a branch of the Inuvialuit.
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.
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.
