Victoria Island

Victoria Island, large island of the Arctic Archipelago, split between the Northwest Territories (the north-west) and Nunavut, northern Canada; it has an area of 217,290 sq km (83,896 sq mi), making it the ninth largest island in the world. The island is separated from the mainland to the south by Dolphin and Union Strait, Coronation Gulf, Queen Maud Gulf, and Dease Strait. It is separated from Banks Island by the long and narrow Prince of Wales strait. Heavily striated by glaciation during successive ice ages, the island is mostly flat, rising to a high point of only 655 m (2,150 ft), and is studded with innumerable shallow lakes formed by melting ice. Among the island's few settlements are Cambridge Bay, site of a weather station on the south-eastern coast, and Holman on the western coast. The island was sighted by the second expedition of Sir John Franklin in 1826, and was named after Queen Victoria by British explorers Thomas Simpson and P. W. Dease in 1839. Other parts of the island were sighted at different times by other expeditions, but because of its irregular shape, with many deep bays, such as Hadley Bay and Prince Albert Sound, forming isolated peninsulas, the various parts were only recognized as belonging to a single island in the 1850s.