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Name:
Nottingham Island
Latitude: 632000
Longitude: 775500
Nottingham Island is situated at the entrance to the Hudson
Strait, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean between Baffin Island and
northern Quebec, Canada, linking Hudson Bay and Foxe Basin with
the Labrador Sea.
| "Named
by Master Hudson, in due bequest to that most honourable
Lord Charles Howard, Earle on Nottingham (1536-1624), then
lord High Admirall of England, a small remembrance for the
charge, countenance and instruction given to the Search
of the enterprise." |
| 9th
Report of the Geographic Board of Canada, North-West Fox,
p.310 |
Nottingham
Island was named by the English explorer Henry Hudson. He came
across the island whilst searching for a passage to Asia in
the early 1600s.
Hudson was an Englishnavigator and explorer who, sailing three
times for the English (1607, 1608, 1610-11) and once for the
Dutch (1609), also braved the arctic.
It was his exploration in 1610 that brought him to the Hudson
Strait and Nottingham Island. After learning of a possible channel
to the Pacific across North America, (described in the logbooks
of a voyage made in 1602 by an English explorer, Capt. John
Smith), Hudson set off in search of the Northwest Passage.
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| Nottingham
Island, Canada |
Hudson set
sail in the aptly named 55-ton "Discovery" from London
on April 17, 1610. The voyage was funded by the British East
India Company , the Muscovy Company and private sponsors including
five noblemen, one of whom was the Earl of Nottingham.
The voyage might have brought the spread of Nottingham's fame
but it was not a happy trip for Hudson. In 1611, there was mutiny
aboard the ship and Hudson and his son were cast adrift in Hudson
Bay, never to be seen again.
Hudson's contribution to geographical knowledge was the catalyst
to much of English claims to many parts of Canada.
Other facts:
- There
are licences to hunt Atlantic Walrus in the waters surrounding
Nottingham Island.
- In 1927
a radio station was built at Nottingham Island to help the
Canadian and the Department of Marine to provide accurate
data for the opening of Hudson's Strait to shipping.
- Sailing
down the Hudson Strait is only possible during late summer
and early autumn, but icebreakers make the passage most of
the year.
- Nottingham
Island has been uninhabited since October 1970. The closest
community is Cape Dorset, 120 kilometres to the Northeast
on Baffin Island.
Weather
Just in case you're tempted to spend
some time in the Nottingham Island vicinity it might be worth
considering the following. The average temperature on the island
is -8.7C, while the average freezing temperature is -15C. There
are only 123 thawing days.
So the advice
is - dress up very very warm.
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