Queen Elizabeth Islands on the east, Parry Channel on the south and the Arctic Ocean to the north and west. Most are uninhabited although the Natural Resources Canada's Climate Change Geoscience Program Earth Sciences Sector (ESS), has monitors on the islands. In 1969 Panarctic Oils, now part of Suncor began operating exploration oil wells in the Sverdrup and Franklinian basins and planned on establishing its resource base in the Queen Elizabeth Islands. It ceased production in the 1970s. At the 2013 GeoConvention the Arctic Islands region were called Canada's perpetual "last petroleum exploration frontier". Hogg and Enachescu argued that the development and implementation
RMS Queen Elizabeth and an outdoor swimming pool. With these improvements, Cunard intended to keep the ship in operation until at least the middle 1970s. However, the strategy did not prove successful due to the high fuel costs plus the ship's deep draught, which prevented her from entering various island ports, and the ship's width which preventing her from using the Panama Canal. Cunard retired "Queen Mary" in 1967 and "Queen Elizabeth" by 1969 and replaced them with a single, smaller ship, the more economical "Queen Elizabeth 2". In 1968, "Queen Elizabeth" was sold to a group of American businessmen from a company