Nares Strait
A set of narrow channels between the northern coast of Greenland and Canada's Ellesmere Island, the Nares Straight marks the boundary between the world's two northernmost land masses. Relatively fresh sea water and ice flow south through the straight, though accruals of multi-year ice make sea passage difficult throughout.

Characterized by brief summers and long, tremendously could winters, this is a land of true extremes. Just four hundred and fifty miles (eight hundred km) from the North Pole, Ellesmere Island to the north is home to more than half of the total ice cover of the Arctic Islands. Inuit settlements along the straight's northwest coast constitute Canada's most northerly year round residents, who have named the area Aujuittuq, or "the place that never thaws."