Eielson Peninsula is a rugged, mainly snow-covered peninsula

Peninsula

A peninsula is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland. In many Germanic and Celtic languages and also in Baltic, Slavic and Hungarian, peninsulas are called "half-islands"....

, 20 nautical miles (37 km) long in an east-west direction and averaging 10 nautical miles (18 km) wide, lying between Smith Inlet

Smith Inlet (Palmer Land)

Smith Inlet is an ice-filled inlet receding in a westerly direction between Cape Boggs and Cape Collier, along the east coast of Palmer Land. The inlet was discovered and charted in 1940 by the U.S. Antarctic Service, but it was later erroneously shown on charts as Stefansson Inlet...

 and Lehrke Inlet

Lehrke Inlet

Lehrke Inlet is an ice-filled inlet, 8 nautical miles wide, which recedes southwest for 17 nautical miles between Cape Boggs and Cape Sharbonneau, along the east coast of Palmer Land. Discovered by members of the United States Antarctic Service who explored this coast on land and from the air...

 on the east coast of Palmer Land

Palmer Land

Palmer Land is that portion of the Antarctic Peninsula which lies south of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This application of Palmer Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between US-ACAN and UK-APC, in which the name Antarctic Peninsula was approved for the major peninsula of...

. The rocky north wall of this peninsula is probably the feature which, on his flight of December 20, 1928, Sir Hubert Wilkins sighted and named "Cape Eielson" from a position above Stefansson Strait

Stefansson Strait

Stefansson Strait is an ice-filled strait 35 nautical miles long and 3 to 10 nautical miles wide, between the east coast of Palmer Land and Hearst Island. This strait was first sighted by Sir Hubert Wilkins at the south end of his flight of December 20, 1928, and was named by him for Vilhjalmur...

 (Wilkins gave the name to the farthest south rock outcrop seen from this position). This rock wall is conspicuous in the aerial photographs of the peninsula taken by members of the United States Antarctic Service (USAS) in 1940 from an aerial position at the north side of Stefansson Strait. The peninsula is named for Carl B. Eielson, pilot on Wilkins' flight of 1928.