Topography of Devon Island
Located in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Devon Island is a desert island with absolutely no long-term residents. It has an area of 55,247 square kilometers and is comparable in size to Croatia.
In the book Arctic Canada From the Air, a Devon Island is described as “a pawless donkey with its head raised to bray” and is divided into three geographic parts: The back of the donkey was a high ice cap, the main body was a flat plateau, and the head/neck was a mountainous region.
According to , in previous times, there were people who lived on this island. The shaman Qidtlarsuaq and his group spent several years in two or three places on the island in mid- 19th centuryduring their migration from Baffin Island to Greenland.
Between 1924 and 1933 and again between 1945 and 1951, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) had a post called Dundas Harbor, near the southeast corner, to promote Canadian sovereignty in the High Arctic. During that period, two police officers and some assistants lived there.
Ocean currents off the south coast of Devon are strong, and once or twice RCMP officers roaming the south coast nearly lost their lives when the sea ice broke up. Due to this danger, they stopped traveling this path.
In the first geographical part, in Truelove Lowlandin north Devon, a scientific camp was built from 1960 onwards. Truelove is one of five oases polar not High Arctic.
Os polar oases they have a relatively pleasant climate and complete vegetation, but they are also the only places in the High Arctic with mosquitoes. Everywhere else, if anywhere, there are only one or two very lost.
During several seasons, for two or three months every summer, researchers studied the plants, musk oxen, foxes and ducks that bred in the large lagoons.
Currently the main visitors to this part of Devon Island are the Inuit of Grise Fiord. In spring, it’s popular to go snowmobiling to Devon Island to fish for saltwater on the ice of the lakes.
The second geographic part, the Beechey Islandthe southwest corner of Devon Island, was the first act of the most famous tragedy in Arctic history. From 1845 to 1846, in a barren cove between Devon and Beechey Islands, three men died and were buried on the beach. The following year, Franklin’s expedition sailed further west and eventually perished entirely.
The third geographical part, in the interior of western Devon, has a well-known characteristic: the Haughton Crater. There is 20 to 30 million years, a meteor hit the Island of Devon, leaving a crater about 22 km in diameter.
At the end of the decade of 1990some Mars enthusiasts decided that the word “crater,” combined with the aridity of that part of the Arctic, made the place similar to Mars.
Additionally, the headland east of Truelove Lowland was an important location on a polar expedition. In 1908, Frederick Cook vaguely attempted to reach the North Pole. He was unsuccessful, but with two Inuit companions, he made a circular movement around Axel Heiberg Island before returning to Devon Island.
The three spent the winter in a stone hut built by the prehistoric people, on which they placed a roof of furs. In the spring, they walked the 700 km back to Greenland.
Finally, there is now permanent accommodation on site. As with the old camp at Truelove Lowland, visitors arrive during the summer, despite the site being uninhabited for much of the year.
