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Frobisher Bay
Frobisher Bay
	Frobisher Bay from Iqaluit, June 2015
	Frobisher Bay and environs
	Frobisher Bay
Location	Nunavut
Coordinates	62°50′N 66°35′W / 62.833°N 66.583°W
River sources	Sylvia Grinnell River
Ocean/sea sources	Davis Strait
Basin countries	Canada
Max. length	230 km (140 mi)
Max. width	40 km (25 mi)
Settlements	Iqaluit

Frobisher Bay is an inlet of the Davis Strait in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada. It is located in the southeastern corner of Baffin Island. Its length is about 230 km (140 mi) and its width varies from about 40 km (25 mi) at its outlet into the Davis Strait to roughly 20 km (12 mi) towards its inner end.^[2]

The capital of Nunavut, Iqaluit, known as Frobisher Bay from 1942 to 1987, lies near the innermost end of the bay.

Geography

Frobisher Bay has a tapered shape formed by two flanking peninsulas, the Hall Peninsula to the northeast, and the Meta Incognita Peninsula to the southwest. The Bay's funnel like shape ensures that the tidal variance at Iqaluit each day is about 7 to 11 m (23 to 36 ft). This shape is due to the large outlet glacier centred over Foxe Basin during the Quaternary glaciation (Pleistocene), which gouged the Bay's basin, now flooded by the sea.^[3]

Within Frobisher Bay itself are a number of bays, inlets and sounds. Among these are Wayne Bay and Ward Inlet (up towards the far northwestern end), and also Newell Sound, Leach Bay and Kneeland Bay (along the southwest shore). Hamlen Bay, Newton Fiord, Royer Cove, and Waddell Bay are located along the northeast shore. Frobisher Bay's whole coastline is marked with innumerable narrow inlets into which flow many small streams. There are high cliffs on both shores, rising to roughly 330 m (1,080 ft) on the northeast shore, and twice that on the southwest shore as a result of the tilting of the Earth's crust locally during the early Tertiary.^[3]

Frobisher Bay is also studded with islands. These include Hill Island and Faris Island near Iqaluit, Pugh, Pike, Fletcher and Bruce islands at the mouth of Wayne Bay, Augustus Island in Ward Inlet, and Chase, McLean, Gabriel and Nouyarn islands towards the Bay's mouth.

History

Frobisher Bay is named for the English navigator Sir Martin Frobisher, who, during his search for the Northwest Passage in 1576, became the first European to visit it. Until Hall's voyage in 1861,^[4] the Bay was thought by Europeans to be a strait separating Baffin Island from another island.

The first Church of England service recorded on North American soil was a celebration of Holy Communion at Frobisher Bay in the last days of August or early September 1578. The Anglican Church of Canada's Prayer Book fixes the day of commemoration as September 3. The chaplain on Frobisher's voyage was " 'Maister Wolfall (probably Robert Wolfall), minister and preacher', who had been charged by Queen Elizabeth 'to serve God twice a day'."^[5]