Boothia Peninsula (original) (raw)
- MLA 8TH EDITION
- . "Boothia Peninsula". The Canadian Encyclopedia, 16 December 2013, Historica Canada. www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/boothia-peninsula. Accessed 22 October 2024.
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- APA 6TH EDITION
- (2013). Boothia Peninsula. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/boothia-peninsula
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- CHICAGO 17TH EDITION
- . "Boothia Peninsula." The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Article published February 06, 2006; Last Edited December 16, 2013.
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- TURABIAN 8TH EDITION
- The Canadian Encyclopedia, s.v. "Boothia Peninsula," by , Accessed October 22, 2024, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/boothia-peninsula
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Published Online February 6, 2006
Last Edited December 16, 2013
The Boothia Peninsula, 32 300 km2, the northernmost tip of mainland North America, juts some 250 km north into the Arctic Archipelago, separated from Somerset Island by Bellot Strait, which is a mere 2 km wide.
It is joined to the mainland by an isthmus almost severed by 2 deep inlets and a chain of large lakes. To the east, across the Gulf of Boothia, is Baffin Island. Prince of Wales Island lies to the northwest, across Franklin Strait. The desolate, treeless peninsula is formed on a central spine of Precambrian rock, flanked by flat-bedded limestone lowlands.
Discovered in 1829 by John Ross, it was named for Felix Booth, a distiller who had financed the expedition. Imprisoned in the ice for 3 winters, Ross was forced to abandon his ship Victory and return on foot. His nephew, James C. Ross, later confirmed that Boothia is a peninsula and discovered the north Magnetic Pole on the west side of the peninsula. (The pole has since migrated northward.)
Roald Amundsen travelled the west coast by sled in 1904, and Henry Larsen wintered at Pasley Bay on his successful voyage through the Northwest Passage (1940-42), journeying all around the peninsula by sledge. There is only one community on the peninsula, the hamlet of Taloyoak, which lies on the isthmus.