Kaffeklubben Island or The Coffee Club Island (Danish: Kaffeklubben Ø; Kalaallisut: Inuit Qeqertaat) is a small island lying off the northern tip of Greenland. It is the northernmost point of land on Earth.
Kaffeklubben Island is found at 83°40′N 29°50′W / 83.66667°N 29.83333°W / 83.66667; -29.83333Coordinates: 83°40′N 29°50′W / 83.66667°N 29.83333°W / 83.66667; -29.83333, and is 713.5 kilometres (443.4 mi) from the geographic North Pole. It is placed north of the Frederick E. Hyde Fjord, about 37 kilometres (23 mi) east of Cape Morris Jesup and west of Cape Bridgman, a little east of a central point along the northern coast of Greenland. Kaffeklubben Island is approximately 1 kilometre (0.6 mi) in length.
The island was first sighted by the American explorer Robert Peary in 1900, however, Kaffeklubben was not visited until 1921. It was then, when the Danish explorer Lauge Koch set foot on the island, that it received its name, after the coffee club in Copenhagen's museum of mineralogy.
In 1969 a Canadian team calculated that its northernmost tip lies 750 metres (2,450 ft) farther north than Cape Morris Jesup, thus claiming its record as the most northerly point on land.
Since then, several gravel banks have been found to the north, most notably Oodaaq, although there is debate as to whether Oodaaq or these other gravel banks should be considered for the record since they are rarely permanent, being regularly swallowed by the moving ice sheets, shifting, or becoming submerged in the ocean.
Famous quotes containing the word island:
“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)