Lancaster Sound in the North West Passage ᑕᓪᓗᕈᑎᐅᑉ ᑕᕆᐅᖓ

Amongst the Ice Floes of Lancaster Sound: Harp seals and polar bears live amongst the endlessly changing sea ice north of Baffin Island. Fata Morgana (the Arctic mirage) deceives the eye. Gulls and Murres breed on the precipitous cliffs of Prince Leopold Island, close to the rich fishing grounds. The last known relic of the Franklin's abortive 1845 expedition are on Beechey Island. Close to the Croker Glacier on Devon Island, seals haul up onto the ice, and a polar bear kill is marked by blood. Devon Island, north of the sound, is significantly bigger than United Kingdom, yet uninhabited. Across Lancaster Sound, on Somerset Island, is the ruined Hudson's Bay Company trading post at Port Leopold and an abandoned Royal Canadian Mounted Police Post at Dundas Harbour. Musk oxen graze the sparse tundra vegetation here.James Ross wintered at Port Leopold in 1849 during his search for Franklin.
After Franklin's expedition was lured to its death, searchers for the lost expedition mapped the channels and islands, which proved there were North West Passages of sorts, but ice clogged and largely unusable by ships. These islands and sounds have, of course, names given them by European explorers.
Lancaster Sound was named in 1616 by William Baffin in honour of one of his benefactors. The Inuktitut name, Tallurutiup gets its name from Talluruti (Dundas Harbour) and means "a woman's chin with tattoos on"......perhaps referring to crevasses and streaks on the land.
The three Nunavut communities of Resolute, Arctic Bay and Pond Inlet depend on the waters of Lancaster Sound for their economic and cultural wellbeing.
Soundtrack: Capercaille - An Gillie Ban