Smith_Sound

Smith Sound

Smith Sound

Arctic sea passage between Greenland and Canada

For other sounds, see Smith Sound, Newfoundland and Labrador and Smith Sound (British Columbia).

Smith Sound (Danish: Smith Sund; French: Détroit de Smith) is an Arctic sea passage between Greenland and Nunavut's northernmost island, Ellesmere Island. It links Baffin Bay with Kane Basin and forms part of the Nares Strait. On the Canadian side it extends from Cape Sabine in the north to Cape Isabella in the south.[1]

Quick Facts Coordinates, Ocean/sea sources ...

On the Greenland side of the sound were the now abandoned settlements of Etah and Annoatok.[3]

History

The first known visit to the area by Europeans was in 1616 when the Discovery, captained by Robert Bylot and piloted by William Baffin, sailed into this region. The sound was originally named Sir Thomas Smith's Bay after the English diplomat Sir Thomas Smythe. By the 1750s it regularly appeared on maps as Sir Thomas Smith's Sound, though no further exploration of the area would be recorded until John Ross' 1818 expedition. By this time it had begun to be known simply as Smith Sound.

In 1852 Edward Augustus Inglefield penetrated a little further than Baffin, establishing a new furthest north in North America.

References

  1. [1]
    "Smith Sound". Geographical Names Data Base. Natural Resources Canada.
  2. [2]
    GoogleEarth
  3. [3]
    Ehrlich, Gretel (2001). This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland. Random House. pp. 26–7, 141, 239, 348. ISBN 978-0-679-75852-5.

Further reading

  • Blake, W. 1999. "Glaciated Landscapes Along Smith Sound, Ellesmere Island, Canada and Greenland". Annals of Glaciology. 28: 40–46.
  • Elton, Charles S. Movements of Arctic Fox Populations in the Region of Baffin Bay and Smith Sound. The Polar Record. [Offprint], no. 37–38. [Cambridge: University Press], 1949.
  • Grist, Alexander, and Marcos Zentilli. 2005. "The Thermal History of the Nares Strait, Kane Basin, and Smith Sound Region in Canada and Greenland: Constraints from Apatite Fission-Track and (U Th Sm)/He Dating". Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. 42: 1547–1569.
  • Kroeber, A. L. The Eskimo of Smith Sound. [New York: Knickerbocker Press], 1900.
  • Peary, Robert E. Northward Over the "Great Ice" A Narrative of Life and Work Along the Shores and Upon the Interior Ice-Cap of Northern Greenland in the Years 1886 and 1891-1897 : with a Description of the Little Tribe of Smith-Sound Eskimos, the Most Northerly Human Beings in the World, and an Account of the Discovery and Bringing Home of the "Saviksue," or Great Cape-York Meteorites. London: Methuen, 1898.


Stub icon

This article about a specific oceanic location or ocean current is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Stub icon

This Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Stub icon

This Greenland location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Smith_Sound, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.