Queen Elizabeth Islands Queen Elizabeth Islands The Queen Elizabeth Islands (; formerly Parry Islands or Parry Archipelago) are the northernmost cluster of islands in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, split between Nunavut and Northwest Territories in Northern Canada. The Queen Elizabeth Islands contain approximately 14% of the global glacier and ice cap area. (excluding the inland and shelf ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica). The islands, together in area, were renamed as a group after Elizabeth II on her coronation as Queen of Canada in 1953. The islands cover an area approximating to the shape of a right triangle, bounded by the Nares Strait
Queen Elizabeth Islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Many of the islands are among the largest in the world, the largest being Ellesmere Island. Other major islands include Amund Ringnes Island, Axel Heiberg Island, Bathurst Island, Borden Island, Cornwall Island, Cornwallis Island, Devon Island, Eglinton Island, Ellef Ringnes Island, Mackenzie King Island, Melville Island, and Prince Patrick Island. Other smaller but notable islands include; Beechey Island (), which held the graves of Petty Officer John Torrington, Royal Marine Private William Braine, and Able Seaman John Hartnell, three members of Sir John Franklin's crew, Hans Island (), a small, uninhabited barren knoll measuring whose