Baffin Island (Inuktitut: ᕿᑭᖅᑖᓗᒃ, Qikiqtaaluk, French: Île de Baffin, Old Norse: Helluland), in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada and the fifth largest island in the world. Its area is 507,451 km2 (195,928 sq mi) and its population is about 11,000 (2007 estimate). Named after English explorer William Baffin, it is likely that the island was known to Pre-Columbian Norse of Greenland and Iceland and may be the location of Helluland, spoken of in the Icelandic sagas (the Saga of Erik the Red (Eiríks saga rauða) and the Grœnlendinga saga).
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Famous quotes containing the words baffin and/or island:
“Brazil is bigger than Europe, wilder than Africa, and weirder than Baffin Land.”
—Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990)
“The shifting islands! who would not be willing that his house should be undermined by such a foe! The inhabitant of an island can tell what currents formed the land which he cultivates; and his earth is still being created or destroyed. There before his door, perchance, still empties the stream which brought down the material of his farm ages before, and is still bringing it down or washing it away,—the graceful, gentle robber!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)