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Ikerasaa Strait (old spelling: ''Ikerasâ'') is a strait in the
Upernavik Archipelago Upernavik Archipelago is a vast coastal archipelago in the Avannaata municipality in northwestern Greenland, off the shores of northeastern Baffin Bay. The archipelago extends from the northwestern coast of Sigguup Nunaa peninsula in the south at ...
in
Avannaata Avannaata (, da, Det Nordlige, lit=The Northern) is a municipality of Greenland created on 1 January 2018 from the bulk of the former Qaasuitsup municipality. It encompasses an area of 522,700 km2 and has 10,726 inhabitants. Geography I ...
municipality in northwestern
Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is ...
. The strait separates
Kiatassuaq Island Kiatassuaq Island (old spelling: ''Kiatagssuaq'', da, Holm Ø, Holm Island) is an uninhabited island in the northern Upernavik Archipelago in Avannaata municipality in northwestern Greenland. It marks the southern border of Melville Bay. Histor ...
in the north from the mainland Sanningassorsuaq Peninsula in the south.''Upernavik Avannarleq'', Saga Map, Tage Schjøtt, 1992 The name of the strait is the local dialect version of ''ikerasak'', a generic word for 'strait' in the
Greenlandic language Greenlandic ( kl, kalaallisut, link=no ; da, grønlandsk ) is an Eskimo–Aleut language with about 56,000 speakers, mostly Greenlandic Inuit in Greenland. It is closely related to the Inuit languages in Canada such as Inuktitut. It is the m ...
.


Geography

The strait is long and at most wide. Located in the northern part of Upernavik Archipelago, it is an inner waterway of Inussulik Bay, linking it with
Alison Bay Alison Bay ( kl, Kullorsuup Kangerlua) is a bay in Avannaata municipality in northwestern Greenland. The bay is a tributary bay of Melville Bay, and is located in the northern part of Upernavik Archipelago, between Kiatassuaq Island in the southwe ...
in the northeast. In the northwest, the strait is bounded by the mountainous
Kiatassuaq Island Kiatassuaq Island (old spelling: ''Kiatagssuaq'', da, Holm Ø, Holm Island) is an uninhabited island in the northern Upernavik Archipelago in Avannaata municipality in northwestern Greenland. It marks the southern border of Melville Bay. Histor ...
. In the northwest, the strait splits into two channels, with the small Milissua Island straddling the middle. The northern channel is very narrow, and both channels often choked with icebergs from the
Greenland ice sheet The Greenland ice sheet ( da, Grønlands indlandsis, kl, Sermersuaq) is a vast body of ice covering , roughly near 80% of the surface of Greenland. It is sometimes referred to as an ice cap, or under the term ''inland ice'', or its Danish equ ...
( kl, Sermersuaq) reaching the waterline at the east end of the strait, and the confluence with Alison Bay. The southern coast of the strait is undeveloped, formed by the Sanningassorsuaq Peninsula, and the nunatak at its root.


References

{{coord, 74, 28, N, 56, 35, W, scale:500000, display=title Inussulik Bay Straits of the Upernavik Archipelago