Coronation Gulf lies between

Victoria Island Victoria Island () is a large island in the Arctic Archipelago that straddles the boundary between Nunavut and the Northwest Territories of Canada. It is the eighth-largest island in the world, and at in area, it is Canada's second-largest i ...

and mainland

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 ...

in Canada. To the northwest it connects with

Dolphin and Union Strait Dolphin and Union Strait lies in both the Northwest Territories (Inuvik Region) and Nunavut (Kitikmeot Region), Canada, between the mainland and Victoria Island. It is part of the Northwest Passage. It links Amundsen Gulf, lying to the northwest ...

and thence the

Beaufort Sea The Beaufort Sea ( ; ) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Alaska, and west of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The sea is named after Sir Francis Beaufort, a Hydrography, hydrographer. T ...

and

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five oceanic divisions. It spans an area of approximately and is the coldest of the world's oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, ...

; to the northeast it connects with

Dease Strait Dease Strait is an east–west waterway between the mainland's Kent Peninsula and Victoria Island (Canada), Victoria Island in Nunavut, Canada. It is part of the Northwest Passage. At its eastern end, approximately wide, is Cambridge Bay; to th ...

and thence

Queen Maud Gulf Queen Maud Gulf lies between the northern coast of the mainland and the southeastern corner of Victoria Island in Nunavut, Canada. At its western end lies Cambridge Bay, leading to Dease Strait; to the east lies Simpson Strait; and to the nort ...

. The northwest point is Cape Krusenstern (not the

Cape Krusenstern Cape Krusenstern ( Iñupiaq: ''Nuvua'' 'its point') is a cape on the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Alaska, located near the village of Kivalina at . It is bounded by Kotzebue Sound to the south and the Chukchi Sea to the west, and c ...

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

). South of that is Richardson Bay and the mouths (from west to east) of the Rae River, Richardson River and the large

Coppermine River The Coppermine River is a river in the North Slave Region, North Slave and Kitikmeot Region, Nunavut, Kitikmeot regions of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut in Canada. It is long. It rises in Lac de Gras, a small lake near Great Slave Lake, a ...

, Napaaktoktok River, and the Asiak River. The Tree River enters at the south centre. At the southeast end is the large

Bathurst Inlet Bathurst Inlet, officially Kiluhiqtuq, is a deep inlet located along the northern coast of the Canadian mainland, at the east end of Coronation Gulf, into which the Burnside and Western rivers empty. The name, or its native equivalent ''Kingo ...

. At the northeast end is Cape Flinders on the Kent Peninsula. In the centre of the gulf lies the Duke of York Archipelago. The gulf was named by Sir

John Franklin Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer and colonial administrator. After serving in the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812, he led two expeditions into the Northern Canada, Canadia ...

in 1821, in honour of the coronation of King George IV. The environment and Native culture of the area were studied by Rudolph Anderson and

Diamond Jenness Diamond Jenness, (February 10, 1886, Wellington, New Zealand – November 29, 1969, Chelsea, Quebec, Canada) was one of Canada's greatest early scientists and a pioneer of Canadian anthropology. Early life (1886–1910) Family and childho ...

in 1916 as part of the Canadian Arctic Expedition. The mainland south of the gulf may have substantial

diamond Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of e ...

and

uranium Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...

deposits. In 2010, the Coronation Gulf was the site of maritime disaster, when the ''Clipper Adventurer'' ran aground on a rock shoal. The accident punctured the ship's ballast and fuel tanks, releasing pollution into the pristine waters, and stranded 128 passengers and 69 crew members until the CCGS ''Amundsen'' came to rescue them.

References

Gulfs of Kitikmeot Region Gulfs of the Arctic Ocean Victoria Island (Canada) {{KitikmeotNU-geo-stub

See also

References