What is the Arctic Archipelago?

The Canadian Arctic Archipelago is the collection of about 36,500 islands north of mainland Canada, covering about 1.4 million square kilometres of land. The archipelago is the second-largest in the world after the Indonesian archipelago. It includes the world's largest islands of the Arctic Ocean and stretches from Banks Island in the west to Ellesmere Island in the east, and from Coats Island in Hudson Bay in the south to Cape Columbia on Ellesmere Island in the north.

Most of the archipelago is in Nunavut, with the western portion (including Banks Island, the western half of Victoria Island, the Inuvialuit Settlement Region islands, and the smaller Parry Islands) in the Northwest Territories. Major islands include Baffin Island (5th largest in the world), Victoria Island (8th largest, partly in NWT and partly in Nunavut), Ellesmere Island (10th largest), Banks Island (24th largest), Devon Island (the largest uninhabited island in the world), and Axel Heiberg Island. Smaller but geographically important islands include Bylot, Cornwallis, Bathurst, Melville, and Prince of Wales Islands.

The archipelago is divided by inter-island channels that collectively form the Northwest Passage. Major channels include Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, Viscount Melville Sound, M'Clure Strait, and the Prince of Wales Strait between Banks and Victoria Islands. Lancaster Sound is the eastern entrance to the Northwest Passage and the Tallurutiup Imanga National Marine Conservation Area (designated 2019, 108,000 square kilometres) protects the Sound and adjoining waters. Sea ice covers most of the inter-island channels for nine to ten months of the year.

The Arctic Archipelago is the homeland of the Inuit and earlier Pre-Dorset, Dorset, and Thule cultures. Permanent Inuit communities include Sachs Harbour and Ulukhaktok in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (NWT), and Cambridge Bay, Kugluktuk, Resolute Bay, Grise Fiord, Pond Inlet, Clyde River, Qikiqtarjuaq, Igloolik, Hall Beach, Pangnirtung, Iqaluit, and Kimmirut in Nunavut. Climate change is rapidly affecting the archipelago: Arctic sea ice extent has declined about 13 per cent per decade since 1979 (the lowest extent on record was September 2012), the Northwest Passage has been navigable for longer periods each summer, permafrost thaw is destabilising buildings and infrastructure, and traditional Inuit hunting patterns are being disrupted. Federal Arctic sovereignty policy includes the Canadian Northern Operational Support Hub at Resolute Bay, the Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ships of the Royal Canadian Navy (the Harry DeWolf class), and expanded NORAD modernisation.