History and Settlement
Robert Bylot was the first European to sight the island in 1616. William Edward Parry charted its south coast in 1819-20. In 1850 Edwin De Haven sailed up Wellington Channel and sighted the Grinnell Peninsula.
An outpost was established at Dundas Harbour in 1924, and it was leased to Hudson's Bay Company nine years later. The collapse of fur prices and the need to cut relief expenses led to the dispersal of 53 Baffin Island Inuit families on the island in 1934. It was considered a disaster due to wind conditions and the much colder climate, and the Inuit chose to leave in 1936. Dundas Harbour was populated again in the late 1940s, but it was closed again in 1951. Only the ruins of a few buildings remain.
Read more about this topic: Devon Island
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“A Settlement is above all a place for enthusiasms, a spot to which those who have a passion for the equalization of human joys and opportunities are early attracted.”
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