The Canadian Arctic Archipelago

The Canadian Arctic Archipelago Today’s Video of the Day from the European Space Agency features a Copernicus-3 satellite view of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

The majority of these Arctic islands are part of Nunavut, which is the largest and northernmost territory of Canada.

The Arctic Archipelago consists of 94 major islands and more than 36,000 small islands. The Canadian Arctic Archipelago as seen above in the video shows you the whole northern area and through the south. The archipelago extends some 2,400 km (1,500 mi) longitudinally and 1,900 km (1,200 mi) from the mainland to Cape Columbia, the northernmost point on Ellesmere Island.

Also on the west by the Beaufort Sea; on the northwest by the Arctic Ocean; on the east by Greenland, Baffin Bay and Davis Strait; and on the south by Hudson Bay and the Canadian mainland. The different islands are broken from each other and the continental mainland by a series of waterways connectively known as the Northwest Passage. Two large peninsulas, Boothia and Melville, extend northward from the mainland.

The Beaufort Sea is to the west, while Canada’s mainland and the Hudson Bay are to the south. Therefore alot of the islands are uninhabited; human existence  is extremely thin and sprice, being mainly coastal Inuit settlements on the southern islands.

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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer

Video Credit: ESA