Kaffeklubben Island does not appear to have ever been inhabited. The nearest ruins from the Independence I culture are located at Cape Bridgman, some 80 km (50 mi) to the southeast. Whether members of this culture, or any culture, ever went to the island or its vicinity is unknown; in any event, the culture disappeared after around 1900 BC, and the northern part of Peary Land – known as Johannes J. Jensen Land – has remained uninhabited ever since.
The first recorded sighting of Kaffeklubben Island was made by the American explorer Robert Peary in 1900, who believed that Cape Morris Jesup on the mainland was the world's northernmost point of land and who declined to name the island. The island itself was not visited until 1921, when the Danish explorer Lauge Koch set foot on the island and named it after the coffee club in the University of Copenhagen Geological Museum.
In 1969, a Canadian team calculated that the island's northernmost tip is 750 metres (2,460 ft) farther north than Cape Morris Jesup, the northernmost point of mainland Greenland, thus claiming its record as the most northerly point of land.
In 2023, an American and Greenlandic team visited to study the flora and fauna, and establish the northernmost terrestrial ecosystem study in the world.[1]
Other claimants for northernmost land
Since its record as the northernmost point of land was established, several gravel banks have been discovered in the sea to the north of the island, such as Oodaaq, 83-42, and ATOW1996; however, there is debate as to whether such gravel banks should be considered for the record since they rarely are permanent, being swallowed regularly by the moving ice sheets, being shifted in tides, or becoming submerged in the ocean. A bathymetric survey in 2022 determined that all gravel banks north of Kaffeklubben are likely not connected to the seafloor, but rather gravel on top of the sea ice, confirming Kaffeklubben as the northernmost true land in the world.[2]
Geography and geology
A navigational chart of northern Greenland and Canada's Ellesmere Island; "Kaffeklubben Ø" is visible in the middle right.
Kaffeklubben Island is 713.5 kilometres (443.3 mi) from the geographic North Pole. The island lies off Cape James Hill, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) northwest of Bliss Bay,[3] approximately 37 kilometres (23 mi) east of Cape Morris Jesup, a little east of a central point along the northern coast of Greenland. Its most northerly point is 4.4 km north of that of Cape Morris Jesup. It is approximately 700 metres (2,300 ft) long,[4] and approximately 300 metres (980 ft) across at its widest point. The highest point is approximately 30 metres (98 ft) above sea level.[4]
