Loks Land Island
Encyclopedia
Canadian Arctic Archipelago
The Canadian Arctic Archipelago, also known as the Arctic Archipelago, is a Canadian archipelago north of the Canadian mainland in the Arctic...
in Nunavut
Nunavut
Nunavut is the largest and newest federal territory of Canada; it was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, though the actual boundaries had been established in 1993...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. It is located off the eastern tip of Baffin Island
Baffin Island
Baffin Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut is the largest island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the largest island in Canada and the fifth largest island in the world. Its area is and its population is about 11,000...
's Blunt Peninsula
Blunt Peninsula
The Blunt Peninsula is a peninsula in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. It lies off the southeastern end of Baffin Island's Hall Peninsula. Across from the Blunt Peninsula are several large islands, including Loks Land Island, as well as hundreds of smaller islets and rocks. Frobisher Bay is...
, close to the mouth of Frobisher Bay
Frobisher Bay
Frobisher Bay is a relatively large inlet of the Labrador Sea in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada. It is located in the southeastern corner of Baffin Island...
. It has an area of 419 km² (161.8 sq mi) and a coastline of 206 km. The local Inuktitut
Inuktitut
Inuktitut or Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, Eastern Canadian Inuit language is the name of some of the Inuit languages spoken in Canada...
name for the island is Takuligjuaq.
Loks Land was the site of one of the stations in the Distant Early Warning Line
Distant Early Warning Line
The Distant Early Warning Line, also known as the DEW Line or Early Warning Line, was a system of radar stations in the far northern Arctic region of Canada, with additional stations along the North Coast and Aleutian Islands of Alaska, in addition to the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland...
radar defence network, and had the code number BAF-4A.
The island was visited by Martin Frobisher
Martin Frobisher
Sir Martin Frobisher was an English seaman who made three voyages to the New World to look for the Northwest Passage...
and is named for Michael Lok
Michael Lok
Michael Lok was an English merchant and traveller, the main backer of Martin Frobisher.-Life:He was a younger son of the mercer Sir William Lok. He was kept at school until 1545, when he was thirteen. His father then sent him to Flanders and France...
, a London financier who was one of the patrons of Frobisher's Arctic expeditions of the 1570s. Frobisher's first expedition found ore which was purported to contain gold, leading to a second and third expedition which failed to find any of the precious metal. These later speculative ventures almost bankrupted Lok.