Bylot Sound

Bylot Sound

A view of Saunders Island with the Bylot Sound on the left and Wolstenholme Island in the background
Location Greenland; between Saunders Island and the mainland
Coordinates 76°24′51″N 69°44′46″W / 76.41417°N 69.74611°W / 76.41417; -69.74611Coordinates: 76°24′51″N 69°44′46″W / 76.41417°N 69.74611°W / 76.41417; -69.74611
Part of Arctic Ocean
Ocean/sea sources Baffin Bay
Basin countries Greenland
Max. length 37 km (23 mi)
Max. width 16 km (9.9 mi)
Frozen Most of the year
Islands Saunders Island and Wolstenholme Island

The Bylot Sound is a sound in the North Star Bay, Qaasuitsup municipality, NW Greenland.[1]

Geography

This channel separates Saunders Island and Wolstenholme Island from the Greenland mainland.[2] Its minimum width is 6 km, between Wolstenholme Island and the mainland point at its southwestern end. There is a tombolo named Uummannaq on the mainland shore at the eastern end of the sound by the former settlement of Pituffik.[3]

View of the tombolo known as Uummannaq and as 'Dundas Mountain'.

History

This strait was named after 17th-century English navigator Robert Bylot, who led two expeditions to find the Northwest Passage.

In the winter of 1849-50 under Commander James Saunders the North Star got frozen-in in the sound during an Arctic expedition to search and resupply Captain Sir James Clark Ross' venture, who in turn had sailed in 1848 trying to locate the whereabouts of Sir John Franklin's expedition.[4] While his ship was trapped by ice Commander Saunders named numerous landmarks in that area.[5]

In 1968 a B-52 bomber carrying four thermonuclear bombs crashed in the ice of the Bylot sound spreading contaminated material over the whole sector.[6]

The abandoned Inuit settlements of Narsaarsuk and Pituffik were located on the shores of the sound. Thule Air Base is currently the only inhabited place in the area.

References

  1. ↑ GoogleEarth
  2. ↑ Plutonium in the environment at Thule, Greenland, from sampling in 2003
  3. ↑ Bylot Sound, Greenland
  4. ↑ Icy Imprisonment: The 1849 Voyage of the HMS North Star
  5. ↑ The Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle, Simpkin, Marshall & Co. London 1850, p. 588
  6. ↑ Plutonium in the environment at Thule, Greenland, from sampling in 2003

External links

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