Devon Island

File:Patterned ground devon island.jpg pattern seen on Devon Island]]

Robert Bylot and William Baffin were the first Europeans to sight Devon Island in 1616.{{cite book

| last = Markham

| first = Clements

| title = The voyages of William Baffin, 1612-1622

| publisher = Hakluyt Society

| year = 1881

| location = London

| url = https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_pmcMAAAAIAAJ| quote = William Baffin.

}} William Edward Parry charted its south coast in 1819–20,{{cite book

| last = Parry

| first = William Edward

| title = Journal of a voyage for the discovery of a North-West passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific: performed in the years 1819-20

| publisher = John Murray

| year = 1821

| location = London

| url = https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_sdM0AAAAQAAJ| quote = William Edward Parry 1819.

}} and named it North Devon, after Devon in England, a name which was changed to Devon Island by the end of the 1800s.

In 1850, Edwin De Haven sailed up Wellington Channel and sighted the Grinnell Peninsula.{{cite book

| last = Savours

| first = Ann

| title = The Search for the North West Passage

| publisher = St. Martin's Press

| year = 1999

| location = New York

| isbn = 9780312223724

| url =https://archive.org/details/searchfornorth00savo_0}}

An outpost was established at Dundas Harbour in 1924, and it was leased to Hudson's Bay Company nine years later. The collapse of fur prices led to the dispersal of 52 Baffin Island Inuit families on the island in 1934. It was considered a disaster due to wind conditions and the much colder climate, and the Inuit chose to leave in 1936. Dundas Harbour was populated again in the late 1940s, but it was closed again in 1951. Only the ruins of a few buildings remain today.{{cite news |last1=Kehoe |first1=Jacqueline |title=The tragic history of the largest uninhabited island on Earth |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/devon-island-arctic-explorers-nasa-mars-missions |access-date=11 October 2024 |agency=National Geographic |date=11 October 2024 |language=en}}

File:Devon topo.png

File:Wff devon island.jpg

Devon Island is located between Ellesmere Island in the north, Cornwallis Island in the west, and Baffin Island in the south, separated by Lancaster Sound.

Because of its relatively high elevation and its extreme northern latitude, Devon Island supports only a meagre population of muskox and small birds and mammals; the island does support hypolith communities. Animal life is concentrated in the Truelove Lowland area of the island, which has a favourable microclimate and supports relatively lush Arctic vegetation. Temperatures during the brief (40 to 55 days) growing season seldom exceed {{cvt|10|C}}, and in winter can plunge to as low as {{cvt|-50|C}}. With a polar desert ecology, Devon Island receives very little precipitation.

Cape Liddon is an Important Bird Area (IBA) notable for its black guillemot and northern fulmar populations.{{cite web|url=http://www.bsc-eoc.org/iba/site.jsp?siteID=NU059|title=Cape Liddon|publisher=bsc-eoc.org|access-date=2009-04-23|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110612101424/http://www.bsc-eoc.org/iba/site.jsp?siteID=NU059|archive-date=2011-06-12}} Cape Vera, another IBA site, is also noted for its northern fulmar population.{{cite web|url=http://www.bsc-eoc.org/iba/site.jsp?siteID=NU053 |title=Cape Vera |publisher=bsc-eoc.org |access-date=2009-05-04 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110612092653/http://www.bsc-eoc.org/iba/site.jsp?siteID=NU053 |archive-date=2011-06-12 }}

Devon Island is also notable for the presence of the Haughton impact crater, created some 39 million years ago when a meteorite about {{cvt|2|km}} in diameter crashed into what were then forests. The impact left a crater about {{cvt|23|km}} in diameter, which was a lake for several million years.

The Devon Island Research Station was established in 1960 and it is maintained by the Arctic Institute of North America. It is located in Truelove Lowland, on the northeast coast of Devon Island ({{coord|75|40|N|84|35|W|}}).{{Cite web |url=http://www.arctic.uoguelph.ca/cpl/links_researchers/research/publications/stations/truelove/truelove.htm |title=Truelove Lowland summary and pictures |access-date=2006-05-23 |archive-date=2006-01-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060129111526/http://www.arctic.uoguelph.ca/cpl/links_researchers/research/publications/stations/truelove/truelove.htm |url-status=dead }}

The Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station project entered its third season in 2004. In July 2004, Devon Island became the temporary home for five scientists and two journalists, who were to use the Mars-like environment to simulate living and working on that planet. April 2007 through 21 August 2007 was the longest simulation period and included 20 scientific studies.{{cite news |first=Barbara |last=Aggerholm |title=Looks like Mars, feels like Mars |url=http://news.therecord.com/article/231567 |publisher=The Record |date=2007-08-22 |access-date=2008-05-06}}

The Haughton crater is now considered one of the world's best Mars analog sites. It is the summer home to NASA's complementary scientific program, the Haughton–Mars Project. The Island's freezing temperatures, isolation, and remoteness offer scientists matchless research opportunities. Devon Island’s harsh climate and barren terrain endeared it to NASA as the Arctic day and night cycle and restricted communications capabilities offer challenges similar to those presented by long-duration space flights.{{Cite web |title=Haughton Mars Project (HMP) - NASA |url=https://www.nasa.gov/mission/haughton-mars-project-hmp/ |access-date=2023-11-30 |language=en-US}}

HMP has conducted geological, hydrological, botanical, and microbiological studies in this harsh environment since 1997.{{cite web |url=http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2007/pdf/2341.pdf |title=Periglacial polygon fields on Devon Island, High Arctic |access-date=2008-05-06 |last=Desportes |first=C. |author2=Rice, M. |author3=Lee, P. |year=2007 |publisher=Lunar and Planetary Science XXXVIII}} HMP-2008 was the twelfth field season at Devon Island.{{cite web |title=Gearing up for the 12th Year of Research at Haughton Crater |url=http://www.marsonearth.org/ |publisher=Mars Institute |date=2008-02-23 |access-date=2008-05-06}}

In 2007, fossils of the seal ancestor Puijila darwini were found on the island.{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8012322.stm|title='Missing link' fossil seal walked|author=Black, Richard|date=2009-04-22|work=BBC Online|access-date=2010-11-13}}

On July 16, 2013, the Canadian Space Agency assigned Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen to a secondment with the Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration of the University of Western Ontario at Haughton Crater in preparation for a potential future crewed exploration of Mars, the Moon or the asteroids.{{cite web|url=http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astronauts/training-geology.asp|title=Training in Geology|website=www.asc-csa.gc.ca|date=12 July 2013|access-date=19 March 2018}}

{{Portal|Islands|Geography}}

• Don G. Despain
• Lauterbornia

{{Reflist}}

• [http://www.marsonearth.org NASA Haughton-Mars project]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOIna8nepaA URBEX - Abandoned ghost town in the Arctic - 2018]

{{refbegin}}

• Anderson, David G, and L C Bliss. 1998. "Association of Plant Distribution Patterns and Microenvironments on Patterned Ground in a Polar Desert, Devon Island, N.W.T., Canada". Arctic and Alpine Research. 30, no. 2: 97.
• Bliss, L. C. Truelove Lowland, Devon Island, Canada A High Arctic Ecosystem. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1977. {{ISBN|0-88864-014-5}}([http://worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/oclc/3675403?page=frame&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.loc.gov%2Fcatdir%2Fenhancements%2Ffy0730%2F78319247-d.html&title=&linktype=digitalObject&detail= Publisher description]{{Dead link|date=January 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }})
• Cockell, Charles S, Pascal Lee, Andrew C Schuerger, Loretta Hidalgo, Jeff A Jones, and M Dale Stokes. 2001. "Microbiology and Vegetation of Micro-Oases and Polar Desert, Haughton Impact Crater, Devon Island, Nunavut, Canada". Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research. 33, no. 3: 306.
• Lamoureux, Scott F, and Robert Gilbert. 2004. "A 750-Yr Record of Autumn Snowfall and Temperature Variability and Winter Storminess Recorded in the Varved Sediments of Bear Lake, Devon Island, Arctic Canada". Quaternary Research. 61, no. 2: 134.
• Paterson, W. S. B. "An Oxygen-Isotope Climate Record from the Devon Island Ice Cap, Arctic Canada". Nature, Vol.266,No.5602. 1977.
• Robertson, Peter, and G. D. Mason. Shatter Cones from Haughton Dome, Devon Island, Canada. 1975.
• Thorsteinsson, R., and Ulrich Mayr. The Sedimentary Rocks of Devon Island, Arctic Archipelago. Ottawa, Canada: Geological Survey of Canada, 1987. {{ISBN|0-660-12319-3}}
• Ugolini, Fiorenzo C, Giuseppe Corti, and Giacomo Certini. 2007. "Pedogenesis in the Sorted Patterned Ground of Devon Plateau, Devon Island, Nunavut, Canada". Geoderma. 136, no. 1: 87.

{{refend}}

{{commons category}}

• [http://people.uleth.ca/~sarah.boon/ Alpine Hydrometerology Lab, University of Lethbridge]
• [http://arctic.eas.ualberta.ca/ Arctic and Alpine Research Group, University of Alberta]
• [http://arctic.marssociety.org/ Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS), The Mars Society]

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Category:Islands of Baffin Bay

Category:Islands of the Queen Elizabeth Islands

Category:Uninhabited islands of Qikiqtaaluk Region

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