Geography
The island has little or no vegetation. Where continuous vegetation occurs, it usually consists of hummocks of mosses, lichens, grasses, and sedges. The only woody species, the dwarf willow, grows as a dense twisted mat crawling along the ground. However, a diverse animal population exists: Polar bear, Peary Caribou, muskox, Northern Collared Lemming, Arctic Wolf, Arctic Fox, Arctic Hare, and Ermine (Stoat) are common. A 2003 sighting of a Grizzly bear and grizzly tracks by an expedition from the University of Alberta represent the most northerly reports of grizzly bears ever recorded.
Melville Island is one of two major breeding grounds for a small sea goose, the Brant Goose. DNA analysis and field observations suggest that these birds may be distinct from other brant stocks. Numbering 4,000-8,000 birds, this could be one of the rarest goose stocks in the world.
Read more about this topic: Melville Island (Northwest Territories And Nunavut)
Famous quotes containing the word geography:
“The California fever is not likely to take us off.... There is neither romance nor glory in digging for gold after the manner of the pictures in the geography of diamond washing in Brazil.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.”
—Derek Wall (b. 1965)
“Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and, if we tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best. See to it, only, that thyself is here;—and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, shall not absent from the chamber where thou sittest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)