Belcher Islands

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The Belcher Islands (Template:Langx)<ref>Issenman, Betty. Sinews of Survival: The living legacy of Inuit clothing. UBC Press, 1997. pp252-254</ref> are an archipelago in the southeast part of Hudson Bay near the centre of the Nastapoka arc. The Belcher Islands are spread out over almost Template:Cvt.<ref name=EB/> Administratively, they belong to the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada.<ref name=OABXN/>

The hamlet of Sanikiluaq, where the majority of the inhabitants of the Belcher Islands live, is on the north coast of Flaherty Island and is the southernmost in Nunavut. Along with Flaherty Island, the other large islands are Kugong Island, Tukarak Island, and Innetalling Island.<ref name="mil">Template:Cite web</ref> Other main islands in the 1,500-island archipelago are Moore Island, Wiegand Island, Split Island, Snape Island, and Mavor Island, while island groups include the Sleeper Islands, King George Islands, and Bakers Dozen Islands.<ref name="Johnson1998">Template:Cite book</ref>

History

The archaeological evidence present on the islands indicates that they were inhabited by the Dorset culture between 500 BCE and 1000 CE. Centuries later, from 1200 to 1500, the Thule people made their presence on the islands.<ref name="Sanikiluaq">Template:Cite web</ref>

The first European to encounter the islands was English sea explorer Henry Hudson, the namesake of Hudson Bay, who sighted the islands in 1610.<ref name=EB>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1670, the islands and the entirety of Hudson Bay drainage basin were designated by the English king, Charles II, as Rupert's Land, managed by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). The islands are likely named after Captain James Belcher, an HBC employee in the early 18th-century,<ref name=HBC>Template:Cite web</ref> or after Royal Navy Admiral Sir Edward Belcher (1799–1877).<ref name=EB/>

In the early 19th century, caribou herds which lived on the islands disappeared. In an alternative effort to find warm clothing, the inhabitants of the islands sought the down of eider ducks, seaducks who nest on the island.<ref name="Sanikiluaq" /> In 1870, Rupert's Land was ceded to the Northwest Territories.

Before 1914, English-speaking cartographers knew very little about the Belcher Islands, which they showed on maps as specks, much smaller than their true extent. In that year a map showing them, drawn by George Weetaltuk,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> came into the hands of Robert Flaherty, and cartographers began to represent them more accurately.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Circa 1933, the Hudson's Bay Company opened a fur trade post, which served as an outpost of the Great Whale River post until 1935, when it became a full post.<ref name=HBC/> In 1941, a religious movement led by Charley Ouyerack, Peter Sala, and his sister Mina caused the death by blows or exposure of nine persons, an occurrence that came to be known as the Belcher Island Murders.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1948, the HBC closed its Belcher Islands post.<ref name=HBC/>

In 1963, the HBC opened a Northern Store on the Belcher Islands, which was named Sanikiluaq from 1978 on. HBC divested the Northern Stores department in 1987 to The North West Company, which still operates a Northern Store at Sanikiluaq.<ref name=HBC/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1999, when Nunavut was separated from Northwest Territories, the Belcher Islands were included within Nunavut, along with most islands in Hudson Bay.

Geology

File:Sanikiluaq rocks -d.jpg

Folded Proterozoic dolomites in the Belcher (Sanikiluaq) Islands

File:Sanikiluaq rocks.jpg

Thin-bedded Proterozoic sedimentary rocks near Sanikiluaq hamlet. These rocks are about 2 billion years old. The width of the bottom of the photo is about 5 metres.

General geology

The geologic units of the Belcher Group, which forms the Belcher Islands, were deposited during the Paleoproterozoic. Combined with other Paleoproterozoic units that occur along the edge of the Superior Craton, the Belcher Group forms part of the Circum-Superior Belt.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

From youngest to oldest, the Belcher Group is composed of:<ref name=":0">Template:Cite report</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite report</ref>

Loaf Formation (molasse)
Omarolluk Formation (flysch)
Flaherty Formation (flood basalt)
Kipalu Formation (iron formation)
Mukpollo Formation (sandstone)
Rowatt Formation (shallow water carbonate)
Laddie Formation (deep marine red bed)
Costello Formation (carbonate slope deposit)
Mavor Formation (stromatolite reef complex)
Tukarak Formation (shallow water carbonate)
Fairweather Formation (shallow water carbonate)
Eskimo Formation (flood basalt)
Kasegalik Formation (sabkha)

The oldest part of the Belcher Group, the Kasegalik Formation, was deposited between 2.0185 and 2.0154 billion years ago.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite journal</ref> The Kasegalik Formation also contains the oldest unambiguous Cyanobacteria microfossils.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Much of the Belcher Group strata were deposited under intertidal to shallow-water conditions, although the Mavor Formation formed a platform margin stromatolite reef complex,<ref name=":3">Template:Cite report</ref> and the overlying Costello and Laddie formations represent slope and deep basin deposits, respectively.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /> The Kipalu Formation, deposited approximately 1.88 billion years ago, is notable for being a granular iron formation.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> The Flaherty Formation basalt that composes much of the Belcher Islands was deposited between 1.87 and 1.854 billion years ago,<ref name=":2" /> with the overlying Omarolluk and Loaf formations being deposited from 1.854 billion years ago until sometime after 1.83 billion years ago.<ref name=":2" /><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Soapstone

The occurrence of very high-quality soapstone in the Belcher Islands supports a locally significant carving industry.<ref name=":4">Template:Cite journal</ref> These soapstone occurrences formed when sedimentary rocks of the Belcher Group were intruded by Haig sills and dykes approximately 1.87 billion years ago.<ref name=":4" /> Most soapstone is quarried from a site on western Tukarak Island where dolomite of the Costello Formation was intruded by hot magma,<ref name=":4" /> with dolomite reacting with quartz and water under intense heat to form talc, calcite, and carbon dioxide:

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Other minerals within the soapstone are largely calcite, dolomite, talc, and clinochlore, with minor amounts of ilmenite.

Although most soapstone has been sourced from two quarries, the relatively widespread occurrence of Haig intrusions within the Belcher Islands suggests that there may be many more possible sources of high-quality soapstone not yet discovered.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Flora

Several species of willow (Salix) form a large component of the native small shrubbery on the archipelago. These include rock willow (Salix vestita), bog willow (S. pedicellaris), and Labrador willow (S. argyrocarpa), as well as naturally occurring hybrids between S. arctica and S. glauca.<ref name="FoNA">Template:Cite book</ref> Trees cannot grow on the islands because of a lack of adequate soil.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Fauna

The main wildlife consists of belugas, walrus, caribou, common eiders and snowy owls all of which can be seen on the island year round. There is also a wide variety of fish that can be caught such as Arctic char, cod, capelin, lump fish, and sculpin.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The historical relationship between the Sanikiluaq community and the eider is the subject of a feature-length Canadian documentary film called People of a Feather. The director, cinematographer and biologist Joel Heath, spent seven years on the project, writing biological articles on the eider.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>