Why Victoria Island
Victoria Island is a vast landmass situated in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, divided between Nunavut's Kitikmeot Region and the Northwest Territories' Inuvik Region. Spanning over 219,000 square kilometers, it ranks as Canada's second-largest island and the eighth-largest globally. The island's population of just over 2,000 residents lives primarily within two communities: Cambridge Bay on the southeastern shore and Ulukhaktok along the western coast. The land mass was named in honor of Queen Victoria.
Resembling the shape of a stylized maple leaf, the island features a heavily indented coastline defined by sweeping inlets and major landmasses, including the Wollaston, Storkerson, and Prince Albert peninsulas. The terrain reaches its highest elevation of 655 meters in the north-central Shaler Mountains. Surrounded by Arctic channels and straits, such as the Dolphin and Union Strait and the Prince of Wales Strait, the area hosts Tahiryuaq as its largest lake and holds the distinction of containing the world's largest island situated within an island within an island.
The human history of the island extends back to the ancient Thule culture, with preserved historical sleds discovered on the Wollaston Peninsula. Known locally as Kitlineq in the Inuinnaqtun language, the region is the traditional home of the Kitlinermiut, or Copper Inuit. European mapping began in the 1820s with navigators such as John Richardson, John Rae, and Robert McClure charting its shores, while the first recorded complete foot-crossing of the island was accomplished in 2008.
The area experiences a polar climate characterized by short, cool summers and long, dark winters. Temperatures rarely average above freezing, and snowfall can occur at any time of year. Due to its northern location, settlements like Cambridge Bay witness complete polar night from late November to mid-January, balanced by continuous daylight from the midnight sun between mid-May and late July.
Wildlife flourishes across the tundra landscape, most notably the endemic Dolphin-Union caribou herd, which travels across frozen sea ice between summer grazing grounds on the island and winter ranges on the mainland. Peary caribou and muskox also roam the region, relying on a diverse lichen flora of over two hundred recorded species that thrives on the rocky soils and underpins the local ecosystem.
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