Dease Strait, Canada NW

Found north of Kent Peninsula and south of Victoria Island, Nunavut’s roughly 160 kilometer long Dease Strait was named after Peter Warren Dease of the Hudson Bay Company. Sir John Franklin, who had been sent on an early attempt to map northern Canada and to search for the Northwest Passage, had received useful information from Dease at Fort Chipewyan before heading north during his first expedition.

Traveling down the Coppermine River, Franklin then took 3 canoes entering Coronation Gulf heading northeast. Reaching Cape Flinders and continuing on to Point Turnagain in August 1821, he had effectively entered Dease Strait which continues on east to Cambridge Bay, Victoria Strait and Queen Maud Gulf. Seals, white foxes and rabbits were hunted on Kent Peninsula and 73 bird species recorded. Musk oxen as well as the endemic Dolphin and Union Caribou, which are different from the wide-spread Barren-ground caribou, can be occasionally seen on both sides of the strait.