- Port Leopold, Prince Leopold Island and Elwin Bay
Port Leopold (coord|73|50|59|N|90|19|59|W) is the site of a former
Hudson's Bay Company trading post at the far northeast corner ofSomerset Island inNunavut ,Canada . It is also the place where the English explorerJames Clark Ross wintered in 1848 during his search for the missing Franklin expedition.To the northeast of Port Leopold, in
Barrow Strait , lies Prince Leopold Island (coord|74|0|N|90|0|W), an oval-shaped island fourteen kilometres E-W by eight kilometre N-S. The island and its birds are protected under Canadian legislation as a Migratory Bird Sanctuary. Large numbers of Thick-billed Murres, Northernfulmar s andBlack-legged Kittiwake s breed on the cliff ledges, arriving in the vicinity in May or early June and departing by mid-September. The island is the most important station for breeding marine birds in the Canadian Arctic, having larger numbers and a greater diversity of species than any other site. Intensive studies of the breeding seabirds were carried out in 1975-77 and in a dozen subsequent years, providing evidence of how ice conditions affect the breeding birds.South of Port Leopold, a few miles further down the eastern coast of Somerset Island, lies Elwin Bay (coord|73|31|59|N|90|55|0|W), filled with the skeletons and bones of several hundred beluga left by whalers. Many hunters died on whaling expeditions.
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.