Prince of Wales Strait


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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Prince of Wales Strait

 

a strait in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, between Victoria and Banks islands. Prince of Wales Strait connects the Amundsen Gulf of the Beaufort Sea with Viscount Melville Sound. The strait is 350 km long and 20 to 45 km wide. It has a maximum depth of 138 m. The strait freezes at the end of September. The southern part is free of ice from the end of July to the beginning of August, but the northern part remains icebound in most years. Prince of Wales Strait was discovered in 1850 by the British arctic explorer R. J. McClure.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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M'Clure Strait was filled with the heaviest floes seen on the voyage, but Prince of Wales Strait was reached without much difficulty.
However, they certainly suggest that under average conditions the passage through Prince of Wales Strait was just as reliably navigable as Amundsen's route, and quite possibly more so.
McGoogan's books feature such inaccuracies as the statements that Victoria Strait was "forever impenetrable to sailing ships" (2001:169) and that Larsen's voyage through Prince of Wales Strait was possible only because he "relied almost entirely" on St.
In other words, his goal was to find what is now called Prince of Wales Strait, which would indeed have been an ideal route.
He quickly discovered the southern part of Banks Island, then followed its eastern coast into Prince of Wales Strait. He wintered in the ice near the strait's northern end, and after a short sledge journey was able to confirm on 26 October 1850 that it opened into Viscount Melville Sound.
The route west of Banks Island was clearly far too dangerous for any further attempts there., but Prince of Wales Strait was a different matter.
Collinson wintered in Hong Kong in 1850-51, then headed north and followed McClure's route up Prince of Wales Strait just after McClure himself had left it.
Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, Viscount Melville Sound, and Prince of Wales Strait.
In 1915, Vilhjalmur Stefansson tried to take his schooner Polar Bear through Prince of Wales Strait, but he was stopped by ice and wintered on Victoria Island.
Who Discovered the Northwest Passage?
Attempting to head north through Prince of Wales Strait, Collinson found Melville Sound choked with ice and settled on a wintering location on the western coast of Victoria Island.
Arctic Hell-Ship: The Voyage of HMS Enterprise 1850-1855
The 1944 trip diverged from the previous track, following Parry's old 1819 route to Melville Island and then heading southwest through Prince of Wales Strait, between Banks and Victoria Islands.
Across the top of the world: the quest for the Northwest Passage

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