Some places on the coast are: (counter clockwise from the northern tip) Cape Felix, Victory Point and Gore Point at the mouth of Collinson Inlet, Point Le Vesconte, Erebus Bay, Cape Crozier, (south side) Terror Bay, Irving Islands, Washington Bay, Cape Herschel, Gladman Point, entrance to Simpson Strait, Todd Islets, (east side) Gjoa Haven, Matheson Peninsula, Latrobe Bay, Cape Norton at mouth of Peel Inlet, Matty Island, Tennent Islands, Clarence Islands, Cape Felix.[7]
Wildlife
The island is known for its large populations of barren-ground caribou, which summer there before migrating in the autumn by walking south over the sea ice.
Summer camp of Sir John Franklin 5.3 km (3.3 mi) south of Cape Felix
Sir John Franklin, another British explorer, made an Arctic expedition looking for the Northwest Passage about a decade after Ross; his two ships became stranded in 1846 when frozen in the sea ice northwest of the island. After abandoning the two ships, most of the crew died from exposure and starvation as they attempted to walk south near the western coastline. Two of Franklin's men were buried at Hall Point on the island's south coast. The ships were believed lost forever, as many subsequent expeditions were unable to find them.
It was not until June 29, 1981, that researchers finally had luck. A team led by Canadian archaeologist Owen Beattie, found 31 pieces of human bone fragments on the southern tip of the island, called Booth Point.[11]
On September 9, 2014, Canada's Prime MinisterStephen Harper announced that the Victoria Strait Expedition had located one of Franklin's two ships beneath shallow waters south of King William Island. It is preserved in very good condition; the side-scan sonar could detect the deck planking.[12][13] By the beginning of October, the wreck had been identified as HMS Erebus.[14] The other expedition vessel, HMS Terror, was found in 2016 in Terror Bay, off the south-west coast of King William Island.[15]
Roald Amundsen
NASALandsat satellite image of King William Island. North is to the upper left
In 1903, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, looking for the Northwest Passage, sailed through the James Ross Strait and stopped at a natural harbour on the island's south coast. Unable to proceed due to sea ice, he spent the winters of 1903–1904 and 1904–1905 there. During his stays, he learned Arctic living skills from the local Netsilik. He used his ship Gjøa as a base for explorations in the summer of 1904, during which he travelled by dogsled on the Boothia Peninsula and to the North Magnetic Pole. After 22 months on the island, Amundsen left in August 1905. The harbour where he lived has the island's only settlement, Gjoa Haven. Amundsen used skills learned from the Inuit when he made his later expedition to the South Pole.[citation needed]
George Porter
George Porter was born on a whaling ship near Herschel Island in 1895 to Mary Kappak and W.P.S. Porter. George was schooled in Alaska. In 1913 he was a sailor on the Elvira and travelled with the explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson. After briefly working as a reindeer herder in Siberia, he enlisted with the US military near the end of the First World War. In 1919, George was discharged from the Army in Iowa. In 1921 George sailed to Australia. Later George guided Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) commander Henry Larsen on many trips. George Porter eventually made Gjoa Haven on King William Island his home, where he worked as the manager of the Hudson's Bay Company trading post for a career of 25 years.[16]
Climate
Like many places in the high Arctic the island has a tundra climate (Köppen: ET), its winter is long and cold and the summers are cool, melting part of the ice; with low precipitation, it is a "cold desert".[17]
Fraser, J. Keith. Notes on the Glaciation of King William Island and Adelaide Peninsula, N.W.T. Ottawa: Geographical Branch, Dept. of Mines and Technical Surveys, 1959.
Taylor, J. Garth. Netsilik Eskimo Material Culture. The Roald Amundsen Collection from King William Island. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1974. ISBN82-00-08945-2
Woodworth-Lynas, C. M. T. Surveying and Trenching an Iceberg Scour, King William Island, Arctic Canada. St. John's: Memorial University of Newfoundland, Centre for Cold Ocean Resources Engineering, 1985.
