What is Ellesmere Island?

Ellesmere Island is the most northerly major island in Canada and the tenth-largest island in the world by area at 196,235 square kilometres. The island is in Nunavut and stretches from the northern tip of Cape Columbia (latitude 83.10 north, the northernmost point of land in Canada and one of the northernmost in the world) south about 800 kilometres to the southern tip near Smith Sound. Ellesmere Island's western coast is on the Sverdrup Basin, and its eastern coast faces Greenland across the narrow Nares Strait.

The island has a population of about 200, concentrated at three locations: Grise Fiord (population about 130, Canada's most northerly civilian community at latitude 76.42 north, established in 1953 by the federal High Arctic relocation), Eureka (a weather station with a transient population of 5 to 10 staff), and Canadian Forces Station Alert (a Department of National Defence signals intelligence post at latitude 82.50 north, the northernmost permanently inhabited place on Earth, with about 50 personnel rotating in for tours).

Quttinirpaaq National Park ('top of the world' in Inuktitut), designated 2001, covers the northern third of Ellesmere Island at 37,775 square kilometres. The park includes Lake Hazen (a thermal oasis with above-average summer temperatures and diverse wildlife), the Hazen Plateau, the United States Range mountains, and several large ice caps. Quttinirpaaq is the second-largest national park in Canada after Wood Buffalo and is one of the most remote, with no road or scheduled flight access. Visitors can charter from Resolute Bay or Eureka but trips can cost more than $30,000 per person.

Ellesmere Island has been the focus of Canadian Arctic sovereignty efforts. The 1922 Eastern Arctic Patrol established RCMP detachments at Bache Peninsula (closed 1933) and Craig Harbour (closed 1956) to assert Canadian sovereignty over Greenland-claimed territory. The 1953 High Arctic relocation moved 87 Inuit from Inukjuak in Nunavik to Ellesmere Island (Grise Fiord) and Cornwallis Island (Resolute Bay) under controversial circumstances; the federal government issued a formal apology in 2010. The Hans Island (Tartupaluk) boundary dispute in the Nares Strait between Ellesmere and Greenland was settled by treaty signed June 14, 2022, dividing the island between Canada and Denmark. The Ellesmere Island Ice Shelf (once a continuous ice barrier across the northern coast) has fragmented dramatically since 2000, with the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf breaking up in 2008 and 2010 and the Milne Ice Shelf collapsing in July 2020.