McDougall Sound is an

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...

waterway A waterway is any navigable body of water. Broad distinctions are useful to avoid ambiguity, and disambiguation will be of varying importance depending on the nuance of the equivalent word in other languages. A first distinction is necessary b ...

in Qikiqtaaluk,

Nunavut Nunavut ( , ; iu, ᓄᓇᕗᑦ , ; ) is the largest and northernmost territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' and the '' Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act'', w ...

, Canada. It is located between southeastern Bathurst Island and western Cornwallis island. The sound's southern mouth opens to the

Parry Channel The Parry Channel ( iu, ᑕᓪᓗᕈᑎᐅᑉ ᐃᒪᖓ, ''Tallurutiup Imanga'') is a natural waterway through the central Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Its eastern two-thirds lie in the territory of Nunavut, while its western third (west of 110° ...

, and beyond that, to the Barrow Strait. The sound's northern mouth opens to Crozier Strait. The sound is populated by several smaller islands, the named ones including Milne Island,

Little Cornwallis Island Little Cornwallis Island is one of the Canadian Arctic islands in Nunavut, Canada. It is located at 75°30'N 96°30'W, between Cornwallis Island and Bathurst Island in McDougall Sound, and measures . It is uninhabited. Little Cornwallis Island ...

, Wood Island, Neal Islands, Truro Island, and Baker Island. McDougall Sound is the namesake of George F. McDougall who explored the sound in 1851 while wintering with Capt.

Horatio Austin Sir Horatio Thomas Austin (10 March 1800 – 16 November 1865) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer. Biography Austin was born in England on 18 March 1800, the son of an official in the Chatham Dockyard. In 1828, was dispatche ...

's search team seeking the lost

Franklin Expedition Franklin's lost expedition was a failed British voyage of Arctic exploration led by Captain Sir John Franklin that departed England in 1845 aboard two ships, and , and was assigned to traverse the last unnavigated sections of the Northwest ...

Fauna

The sound is home to

bearded seal The bearded seal (''Erignathus barbatus''), also called the square flipper seal, is a medium-sized pinniped that is found in and near to the Arctic Ocean. It gets its generic name from two Greek words (''eri'' and ''gnathos'') that refer to its h ...

. Atlantic

walrus The walrus (''Odobenus rosmarus'') is a large flippered marine mammal with a discontinuous distribution about the North Pole in the Arctic Ocean and subarctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. The walrus is the only living species in the fami ...

(''O. rosmarus rosmarus'') have also been charted as far west as McDougall Sound.

Ethnography

In his 1990 study of

Paleo-Eskimo The Paleo-Eskimo (also pre-Thule or pre-Inuit) were the peoples who inhabited the Arctic region from Chukotka (e.g., Chertov Ovrag) in present-day Russia across North America to Greenland prior to the arrival of the modern Inuit (Eskimo) and re ...

people (who preceded the

Inuit Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and ...

), Helmer describes three occupation periods in the McDougall Sound region: Transitional Period

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , Do ...

(ca. 3000 BP), Early Dorset (2500—2200 BP), and Late Dorset (ca. 1500—1000 BP), demonstrating abrupt ends to three sets of occupations by Palaeo-Eskimo hunters. The University of Calgary's McDougall Sound Arctic Research Project continued this work.

References

Sounds of Qikiqtaaluk Region Bodies of water of Baffin Bay {{QikiqtaalukNU-geo-stub