Murchison Promontory
Encyclopedia
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...
that is the northernmost point on mainland Canada and on the mainland of North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
; it is also one of the Extreme points of Earth.
The distance to the North Pole
North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface...
is 1087 nmi (1,250.9 mi; 2,013.1 km), or 64 km (39.8 mi) closer than the distance from Point Barrow
Point Barrow
Point Barrow or Nuvuk is a headland on the Arctic coast in the U.S. state of Alaska, northeast of Barrow. It is the northernmost point of all the territory of the United States, at...
, Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
(the northernmost point
Extreme points of the United States
This is a list of the extreme points of the United States, the points that are farther north, south, east, or west than any other location in the country. Also included are extreme points in elevation, extreme distances, and other points of peculiar geographic interest.-Northernmost:*Point Barrow,...
in the United States) to the Pole.
Geography
Murchison Promontory is situated in NunavutNunavut
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...
on the northern part of the Boothia Peninsula
Boothia Peninsula
Boothia Peninsula is a large peninsula in Nunavut's northern Canadian Arctic, south of Somerset Island. The northern part, Murchison Promontory, is the northernmost point of mainland Canada, and thus North America....
in the northern Canadian
Northern Canada
Northern Canada, colloquially the North, is the vast northernmost region of Canada variously defined by geography and politics. Politically, the term refers to the three territories of Canada: Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut...
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...
. The northernmost point on the promontory is Zenith Point with coordinates 72°00′00"N 94°38′59"W.
The cape is located on the south side of the, 48 by, Bellot Strait
Bellot Strait
Bellot Strait is a passage of water in Nunavut separating Somerset Island from Murchison Promontory on the Boothia Peninsula, the northernmost part of mainland North America...
which separates it from Somerset Island and roughly about 250 km (155.3 mi) north of the hamlet of Taloyoak
Taloyoak, Nunavut
Taloyoak or Talurjuaq is located on the Boothia Peninsula, Kitikmeot, in Canada's Nunavut Territory. The community is served only by air and by annual supply sealift. Taloyoak may mean "large blind", referring to a stone caribou blind or a screen used for caribou hunting...
.
Murchison Promontory is part of the Kitikmeot Region
Kitikmeot Region, Nunavut
Kitikmeot Region is an administrative region of Nunavut, Canada. It consists of the southern and eastern parts of Victoria Island with the adjacent part of the mainland as far as the Boothia Peninsula, together with King William Island and the southern portion of Prince of Wales Island...
(Qitirmiut).
History
The area was first explored in April 1852 by Canadian Captain William KennedyWilliam Kennedy (explorer)
William Kennedy was born at Cumberland House, Saskatchewan, a son of the Hudson's Bay Company Chief Factor there, Alexander Kennedy and his Cree wife, Aggathas. At thirteen, he was sent to his father’s birthplace in the Orkney Islands for his education...
and French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
explorer Joseph René Bellot
Joseph René Bellot
Joseph René Bellot was a French Arctic explorer.Bellot was born at Paris, the son of a farrier, but moved to Rochefort with his family in 1831. With the aid of the authorities of Rochefort he was enabled at the age of 15 to enter the Ecole Navale at Brest, in which he studied two years and earned...
while searching for traces of 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...
's lost Arctic expedition
Franklin's lost expedition
Franklin's lost expedition was a doomed British voyage of Arctic exploration led by Captain Sir John Franklin that departed England in 1845. A Royal Navy officer and experienced explorer, Franklin had served on three previous Arctic expeditions, the latter two as commanding officer...
. The strait was then named after Bellot.
Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
born Francis Leopold McClintock
Francis Leopold McClintock
Admiral Sir Francis Leopold McClintock or Francis Leopold M'Clintock KCB, FRS was an Irish explorer in the British Royal Navy who is known for his discoveries in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.-Biography:...
also wintered in the area with his ship Fox
Fox (ship)
The steam yacht Fox was the vessel commanded by Francis Leopold McClintock on an expedition of the Arctic in northern Canada searching for the fate of the missing expedition of Sir John Franklin in 1857-1859.-Construction and Early History:...
in the winter of 1858 - 1859 in his search for the Franklin expedition.
In 1937 Scot
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
E. J. "Scotty" Gall passed the promontory on his ship "Aklavik" on the first crossing of the Bellot Strait travelling from the western shore to the eastern for the Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
.
