Victoria Strait

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Satellite image with the Victoria Strait to the bottom right just above the Queen Maud Gulf

Victoria Strait is a strait in northern Canada that lies in Nunavut off the mainland in the Arctic Ocean. It is between Victoria Island to the west and King William Island to the east. From the north the strait links the McClintock Channel and the Larsen Sound with the Queen Maud Gulf to the south. The strait is about 100 miles long and anywhere from 50 to 80 miles wide.^[1]

The strait is wide, with almost no islands, save for the rather large Royal Geographical Society Islands near the Queen Maud Gulf at the extreme south of the strait. The strait has never been comprehensively surveyed, however charted portions indicate several patches where the water is only 30 feet of depth. Ships drawing up to 30 feet have navigated the strait, but it is made very difficult by the ice. Most of the year the strait is covered with rough, heavy ice. Much of this is polar ice which has flowed down the MClintock Channel from the Viscount Melville Sound. Large-scale breakup of the ice in the strait begins by late July and continues in to late September when it begins to freeze again.^[2]

Near the entrance of Victoria Strait was where John Franklin's HMS Terror and HMS Erebus became trapped during an expedition and were abandoned in 1848. Due to the hazards of the strait, a longer route was used which went around King William Island. This route was easier despite having an even shallower bottom.^[3] In 1967, the Victoria Strait was used for the first time by an icebreaker, the John A. Macdonald, when travelling to the western arctic to assist shipping. It was crossed again by the same icebreaker in 1975, and later in 1976 by the icebreakers CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent and CCGS J.E. Bernier.^[2]

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