So, where is the Canadian Arctic Archipelago located? It is "north of the Canadian mainland in the Arctic. Situated in the northern extremity of North America and covering about 1,424,500 km2 (550,000 sq mi), this group of 36,563 islands comprises much of the territory of Northern Canada – most of Nunavut and part of the Northwest Territories."1 It has been described as the world’s largest high-Arctic land area. The terrain is a vast tundra, nearly level and treeless except in mountainous areas where nothing grows except glaciers. Most of this territory is uninhabited; human settlement is extremely thin and scattered, being mainly coastal Inuit settlements on the southern islands. (See Map)

Here is an observation of the High Polar North, made in the year 1857:

"There is an unusual dearth of birds and seals; everything around us is painfully still, excepting when an occasional iceberg splits off from the parent glacier; then we hear a rumbling crash like distant thunder, and the wave occasioned by the launch reaches us in six or seven minutes, and makes the ship roll lazily for a similar period. I cannot imagine that within the whole compass of nature's varied aspects there is presented to the human eye a scene so well adapted for promoting deep and serious reflection, for lifting one's thoughts from trivial things of everyday life to others of the highest moment."2

As a supplement to my main work, I have touched upon the early European Discovers of the Arctic Archipelago. Fair to say, from the earliest explorers to those of the era I cover, were driven to find a shorter way to the riches of the orient. Most of those in the know, were of the view that there was a north-west passage; it just needed to be discovered.

"... the conviction must have been more and more impressed upon their minds that this was the real pathway for ships striving to get from sea to sea, if only a gap to the eastward, which would connect it with the older discoveries on the Atlantic side, could be found."6