The Clarence Islands are a Canadian Arctic island group in the

Nunavut Nunavut is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' and the Nunavut Land Claims Agr ...

Territory. The islands lie in the James Ross Strait, east of Cape Felix, off the northeast coast of

King William Island King William Island (, ; previously: King William Land) is an island in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut, which is part of the Arctic Archipelago. In area it is between and making it the list of islands by area, 61st-largest island in the world ...

. They are about west of Kent Bay on the

Boothia Peninsula Boothia Peninsula (; formerly ''Boothia Felix'', Inuktitut ''Kingngailap Nunanga'') is a large peninsula in Nunavut's northern Canadian Arctic, south of Somerset Island. The northern part, Murchison Promontory, is the northernmost point of ...

, and about northwest of the Tennent Islands.

History

Captain (Sir) John Ross commanded the ''Victory'' during his second Arctic exploration (1829—1833), partly in order to regain credibility after charting a fictional landform, Croker Mountains, during his first Arctic expedition. He chose his nephew, Commander

James Clark Ross Sir James Clark Ross (15 April 1800 – 3 April 1862) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer of both the northern and southern polar regions. In the Arctic, he participated in two expeditions led by his uncle, Sir John Ross, John ...

, to be second in command. In 1830, while exploring within the Ross Strait, James Ross charted three islands. He named the group "Beaufort Islands" after Capt.

Francis Beaufort Sir Francis Beaufort ( ; 27 May 1774 – 17 December 1857) was an Irish hydrographer and naval officer who created the Beaufort cipher and the Beaufort scale. Early life Francis Beaufort was descended from French Protestant Hugu ...

hydrographer Hydrography is the branch of applied sciences which deals with the measurement and description of the physical features of oceans, seas, coastal areas, lakes and rivers, as well as with the prediction of their change over time, for the primary ...

of the Admiralty,Ross 1994:195Bossi 1984:571 and named the individual islands Adolphus Island, Frederick Island, and Augustus Island. John Ross did not see the "Beaufort Islands". Upon returning to England in 1833, the expedition's members learned that the Duke of Clarence had ascended to the throne in 1830, becoming King William IV. John Ross reviewed his expedition's chart book with Capt. Beaufort and with the new king. With the notation "changed by His Majesty's command" included, John Ross made changes to the chart: he added six islands and three capes, all with royal Clarence and Fitz-Clarence family names (including Munster Island, Falkland Island, Erskine Island, Fox Island, Errol Island, Cape Sophia, Cape Sidney, and Cape Mary), and renamed the island group "Clarence Islands". While as leader of the expedition, John Ross had authority to name newly charted landforms as he wished, he did not receive authority to add fictional landforms to navigation chart books. Lady

Jane Franklin Jane, Lady Franklin (née Griffin; 4 December 1791 – 18 July 1875) was a British explorer, seasoned traveller and the second wife of the English explorer Sir John Franklin. During her husband's period as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's L ...

documented in her diary a meeting she had with Capt. Beaufort regarding the controversial chart book changes:

Captain B. asked me if Sir John's ire had abated against (James) Ross, and he (Captain B.) seemed much tickled at this subject - he was not one he said to take away a man's fair character, but there were some things that ought to be held up to reprobation, and he was now going to tell me a good story. He had the book brought him and he asked me how many islands I counted in the Clarence group. I counted 9 - 3 I said were lilac, and the others white. "Well", says he, "there are but 3, and when the chart was first shown to me, there were only 3 marked down, but Ross having proposed to the King to call them the Clarence Islands, 'Yes, yes,' said the King, 'call them the Clarence islands', and then Ross thought it would be as well to make a few more, so that the Clarences and Fitzclarences might have one apiece." The story was afterwards confirmed to Sir John by Capt. James Ross, who said that his uncle had never seen the islands, had never been there and that it was he, Capt. James, who laid down in the map the true original number.

References

Sources

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Clarence Islands at Atlas of Canada
{{Islands of the Kitikmeot Region Uninhabited islands of Kitikmeot Region