The islands, together 419,061 km2 (161,800 sq mi)[2] in area, were renamed as a group afterElizabeth II on her coronation asQueen of Canada in 1953. The islands cover an area approximately the shape of a right triangle, bounded by theNares Strait on the east,Parry Channel on the south and theArctic Ocean to the north and west. Most are uninhabited although theNatural Resources Canada's Climate Change Geoscience Program Earth Sciences Sector (ESS), has monitors on the islands.[3] In 1969Panarctic Oils, now part ofSuncor Energy, began operating explorationoil wells in the Franklinian andSverdrup basins and planned on establishing its resource base in the Queen Elizabeth Islands. It ceased production in the 1970s. At the 2013 GeoConvention the Arctic Islands region were called Canada's perpetual "lastpetroleum exploration frontier". Hogg and Enachescu argued that the development and implementation of advanced marine and land seismic technologies in Alaska, Northern Europe and Siberia could be modified for use in the Queen Elizabeth Islands.[4]
Queen Elizabeth Islands had not been fully charted until the BritishNorthwest Passage expeditions and later Norwegian exploration of the 19th century.
These islands were known as theParry Archipelago for over 130 years. They were first named after BritishArctic explorer SirWilliam Parry, who sailed there in 1820, aboard theHecla. Since the renaming of the archipelago in 1953, the termParry Islands continued to be used for its southwestern part (lessEllesmere Island and theSverdrup Islands). The regional break down of the archipelago is therefore as follows:
Ellesmere Island
Sverdrup Islands
Parry Islands
Ellesmere Island is the northernmost and by far the largest. The Sverdrup Islands are located west of Ellesmere Island and north ofNorwegian Bay. The remaining islands further south and west, but north of theParry Channel (Lancaster Sound,Viscount Melville Sound andM'Clure Strait), have been carrying the name Parry Islands, which name until 1953 had also included the Sverdrup Islands and Ellesmere Island. South of the Parry Channel are the remaining islands of theArctic Archipelago.
With a population of less than 400, the islands are nearly uninhabited. There are only three permanently inhabited places in the islands. The twomunicipalities are thehamlets ofResolute (population 198 as of the2016 census[10]), on Cornwallis Island, andGrise Fiord (population 129 as of the 2016 census[11]), on Ellesmere Island.Alert is aweather station staffed byEnvironment and Climate Change Canada, aGlobal Atmosphere Watch (GAW)atmosphere monitoring laboratory on Ellesmere Island, and has several temporary inhabitants due to the co-locatedCFS Alert.Eureka, a small research base on Ellesmere Island, has a population of zero but at least eight staff on a continuous rotational basis.
Until 1999, the Queen Elizabeth Islands were part of theBaffin Region of the Northwest Territories.
With the creation of Nunavut in 1999 all islands and fractions of islands of the archipelago east of the110th meridian west became part of theQikiqtaaluk Region of the new territory, which was the major portion of the archipelago. The rest remained with the now-reduced Northwest Territories. Borden Island, Mackenzie King Island and Melville Island were divided between the two territories.
Prince Patrick Island, Eglinton Island and Emerald Island are the only notable islands that are now completely part of the Northwest Territories.
Below the level of the territory, there is the municipal level of administration. On that level, there are only two municipalities,Resolute andGrise Fiord, with an aggregate area of 450 km2 (170 sq mi) (0.11 percent of the area of the Queen Elizabeth Islands), but with most of the population of the archipelago (327 in 2021). The remaining 99.89 percent areunincorporated area, with a census 2021 population of zero, albeit a fluctuating population centred inAlert and Eureka, Nunavut.
In 2000 it was estimated that the Queen Elizabeth Islands were covered by about 104,000 km2 (40,000 sq mi) glaciers that represent c.14% of all glaciers and ice caps in the world.[1] According to a 2011 report, thesurface mass balance of four, theDevon Ice Cap measured 1,699 km2 (656 sq mi) (northwest sector only); the Meighen Ice Cap measured 75 km2 (29 sq mi); the Melville South Ice Cap measured 52 km2 (20 sq mi) and the White Glacier,Axel Heiberg Island glacier was 39 km2 (15 sq mi).[1] The size of these glaciers has been measured since 1961 and their results published in such distinguished journals as theInternational Glaciological Society'sAnnals of Glaciology.[1][48][49]
Of the four ice caps that the federal government's NRCan's Climate Change Geoscience Program Earth Sciences Sector (ESS), monitors onsite in the Canadian High Arctic, three are in the Queen Elizabeth Islands: Devon, Meighen and Melville.[3] A 2013Natural Resources Canada memo says that shrinking of the ice caps started in the late 1980s, and has accelerated rapidly since 2005. The increased melt rate was confirmed byUniversity of California, Irvine in 2017.[50]
Computer analysis of a glacier inventory of Axel Heiberg Island was undertaken in the 1960s.[51] Later inventories of theWorld Glacier Monitoring Service under the direction ofFritz Müller, who worked on glacier inventories internationally, included the Axel Heiberg Island glacier.[52]
^Hogg, John R.; Enachescu, Michael E (2013).Reviving Exploration in the Arctic Islands: Opportunities and Challenges from an Operator's Perspective. GeoConvention 2013: Integration. Calgary, Alberta.
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