Baffin Bay
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Baffin Bay, lying between Nunavut, Canada and Greenland. |
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An iceberg at the edge of the Baffin Bay's sea ice. |
Baffin Bay (French:
Baie de Baffin) is a
sea between the
Atlantic and
Arctic oceans. It is 1,130 km (700 mi) across from north to south. It is not navigable most of the year because of the presence of large numbers of
icebergs.
Baffin Bay is an arm of the Arctic Ocean bounded by
Baffin Island in the west,
Greenland in the east, and
Ellesmere Island in the north. It connects to the Atlantic through
Davis Strait, and to the Arctic through several narrow channels of
Nares Strait. These channels are covered year-round by the polar ice cap.
In the 1800s the bay was an important whaling region.
The British explorer
John Davis was the first
European to enter the bay in
1585. The bay is named after
William Baffin, the first person to navigate the bay, in
1616.