McDougall Sound is an Arctic

Arctic

The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...

 waterway

Waterway

A waterway is any navigable body of water. Waterways can include rivers, lakes, seas, oceans, and canals. In order for a waterway to be navigable, it must meet several criteria:...

 in Qikiqtaaluk, 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's located between southeastern Bathurst Island

Bathurst Island

A member of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Bathurst Island is one of the Queen Elizabeth Islands in Nunavut Territory, Canada. The area of the island is estimated at , making it the 54th largest island in the world and Canada's 13th largest island. It is uninhabited.The island is low-lying with...

 and western Cornwallis island. The sound's southern mouth opens to the Parry Channel

Parry Channel

The Parry Channel is a natural waterway through thecentral Canadian Arctic Archipelago in the territory of Nunavut. It runs east to west, connecting Baffin Bay in the east with the Beaufort Sea in the west. The channel separates the Queen Elizabeth Islands to the north from the rest of...

, and beyond that, to the Barrow Strait

Barrow Strait

Barrow Strait is a shipping waterway in Northern Canada's territory of Nunavut. Forming part of the Parry Channel, the strait separates several large islands including Cornwallis Island and Devon Island to the north, from Prince of Wales Island, Somerset Island, and Prince Leopold Island to the...

. The sound's northern mouth opens to Crozier Strait. The sound is populated by several smaller islands, the named ones including Milne Island, Little Cornwallis Island

Little Cornwallis Island

Little Cornwallis Island is one of the Canadian Arctic islands in Nunavut, Canada. It is located at 75°30'N 96°30'W, between Cornwallis Island and Bathurst Island in McDougall Sound, and measures . It is uninhabited....

, Wood Island, Neal Islands, Truro Island

Truro Island

Truro Island lies within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of northern Canada's territory of Nunavut. It is one of the mid-waterway islands in the McDougall Sound between Bathurst Island and Cornwallis Island...

, and Baker Island.

McDougall Sound is the namesake of George F. McDougall who explored the sound in 1851 while wintering with Capt. Horatio Austin's search team seeking the lost Sir John Franklin

John Franklin

Rear-Admiral Sir John Franklin KCH FRGS RN was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. Franklin also served as governor of Tasmania for several years. In his last expedition, he disappeared while attempting to chart and navigate a section of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic...

 expedition.

Fauna

The sound is home to bearded seal

Bearded Seal

The bearded seal , also called the square flipper seal, is a medium-sized pinniped that is found in and near to the Arctic Ocean. It gets its generic name from two Greek words that refer to its heavy jaw...

. Atlantic walrus

Walrus

The walrus is a large flippered marine mammal with a discontinuous circumpolar distribution in the Arctic Ocean and sub-Arctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. The walrus is the only living species in the Odobenidae family and Odobenus genus. It is subdivided into three subspecies: the Atlantic...

 (O. rosmarus rosmarus) have also been charted as far west as McDougall Sound.

Ethnography

In his 1990 study of Paleo-Eskimo

Paleo-Eskimo

The Paleo-Eskimo were the peoples who inhabited the Arctic region from Chukotka in present-day Russia across North America to Greenland prior to the rise of the modern Inuit and/or Eskimo and related cultures...

 people (who preceded the Inuit

Inuit

The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...

), Helmer describes three occupation periods in the McDougall Sound region: Transitional Period Dorset

Dorset culture

The Dorset culture was a Paleo-Eskimo culture that preceded the Inuit culture in Arctic North America. It has been defined as having four phases, with distinct technology related to the people's hunting and tool making...

 (ca. 3000 BP), Early Dorset (2500—2200 BP), and Late Dorset (ca. 1500—1000 BP), demonstrating abrupt ends to three sets of occupations by Palaeo-Eskimo hunters. The University of Calgary

University of Calgary

The University of Calgary is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1966 the U of C is composed of 14 faculties and more than 85 research institutes and centres.More than 25,000 undergraduate and 5,500 graduate students are currently...

's McDougall Sound Arctic Research Project continued this work.