Hudson Bay () is a large body of water in northeastern
Canada. It drains a very large area that includes parts of
Ontario,
Quebec,
Saskatchewan,
Alberta, most of
Manitoba, southeastern
Nunavut, as well as parts of
North Dakota,
South Dakota,
Minnesota, and
Montana. A smaller offshoot of the bay,
James Bay, lies to the south. The
International Hydrographic Organization lists Hudson Bay as part of the
Arctic Ocean.
The Eastern
Cree name for Hudson and
James Bay is
Wînipekw (Southern dialect) or
Wînipâkw (Northern dialect), meaning muddy or brackish water.
Lake Winnipeg is similarly named by the local
Cree, as is the location for the City of
Winnipeg.
Description
Hudson Bay is 1.23 million km², making it the second-largest bay in the world (after the
Bay of Bengal). It is relatively shallow, with an average depth of about 100 meters (compared to 2,600 meters in the Bay of Bengal). It is approximately long and wide. On the east it is connected with the
Atlantic Ocean by
Hudson Strait, and on the north with the rest of the Arctic Ocean by
Foxe Basin (which is not considered part of the bay) and
Fury and Hecla Strait.
Geographic coordinates: 78° to 95° W, 51° to 70° N.
History
Canada, Routes of Explorers, 1497 to 1905
Hudson Bay was named after
Henry Hudson, who explored the bay in 1610 on his ship the
Discovery. On this fourth voyage he worked his way around the west coast of
Greenland and into the bay, mapping much of its eastern coast. The
Discovery became trapped in the ice over the winter, and the crew survived onshore at the southern tip of
James Bay. When the ice cleared in the spring Hudson wanted to explore the rest of the area, but the crew
mutinied on
June 22,
1611, and left Hudson and others adrift in a small boat. No one to this day knows the fate of Hudson and the crewmembers stranded with him.
Sixty years later the
Nonsuch reached the bay and successfully traded for
beaver pelts with the
Cree. This led to the creation of the
Hudson's Bay Company, which bears its name to this day. The British crown awarded a trading monopoly on the Hudson Bay
watershed, called
Rupert's Land, to the Hudson's Bay Company. France contested this grant by sending several military expeditions to the region, but abandoned its claim in the
Treaty of Utrecht (April, 1713).
During this period, the Hudson's Bay Company built several
forts and
trading posts along the coast at the mouth of the major rivers (such as
Fort Severn, Ontario,
York Factory, Manitoba, and
Churchill, Manitoba). The strategic locations allowed inland exploration and more importantly, facilitated trade with the indigenous people, who would bring fur to the posts from where the HBC would transport it directly to Europe. The HBC continued to use these posts until the beginning of the 20th century. The port of Churchill is still today an important shipping link for trade with Europe and Russia.
This land, an area of approximately 3.9 million km², was ceded in 1870 to
Canada as part of the
Northwest Territories when the trade monopoly was abolished. Starting in 1913, the Bay was extensively charted by the Canadian Government's
CSS Acadia to develop the bay for navigation. This resulted in the establishment of
Churchill, Manitoba, as a deep-sea port for wheat exports in 1929 after unsuccessful attempts at
Port Nelson.
Due to a change in naming conventions, Hudson's Bay is now called Hudson Bay. As a result, the names of the body of water and the company are often mistaken for one another.
Geography
Climate
In early November ice at Hudson Bay starts to form
Hudson Bay was the growth centre for the main ice sheet that covered northern North America during the last Ice Age. The whole region has very low year round average temperatures. (The average annual temperature for Churchill at 59°N is -5°C; by comparison
Arkhangelsk at 64°N in a similar cold continental position in northern Russia has an average of 2°C.) Water temperature peaks at 8°-9°C on the western side of the bay in late summer. It is largely frozen over from mid-December to mid-June when it usually clears from its eastern end westwards and southwards. A steady increase in regional temperatures over the last 100 years has been reflected in a lengthening of the ice-free period which was as short as four months in the late 17th century.
Waters
In late spring (May), large chunks of ice float near the eastern shore of the bay, while to the west, the center of the bay remains frozen. Between 1971 and 2007, the length of the ice-free season in the southwestern part of the Hudson Bay—historically the last area to thaw—increased by about seven days.
Hudson Bay has a
salinity that is lower than the world ocean on average. This is caused mainly by the low rate of evaporation (the bay is ice-covered for much of the year), the large volume of terrestrial runoff entering the bay (about 700 km³ annually; the
Hudson Bay watershed covers much of
Canada, with many rivers and streams discharging into the bay), and the limited connection with the larger Atlantic Ocean (and its higher
salinity). The annual freeze-up and thaw of
sea ice significantly alters the salinity of the surface layer, representing roughly three years' worth of river inflow.
Shores
The western shores of the bay are a lowland known as the "Hudson Bay Lowlands" which covers 324,000 km². The area is drained by a large number of rivers and has formed a characteristic vegetation known as
muskeg. Much of the landform has been shaped by the actions of
glaciers and the shrinkage of the bay over long periods of time. Signs of numerous former beachfronts can be seen far inland from the current shore. A large portion of the lowlands in the province of
Ontario is part of the
Polar Bear Provincial Park, and a similar portion of the lowlands in
Manitoba is contained in
Wapusk National Park, the latter location being a significant
Polar Bear maternity denning area.
In contrast, most of the eastern shores (the Quebec portion) form the western edge of the
Canadian Shield in Quebec. The area is rocky and hilly. Its vegetation is typically
boreal forest, and to the north,
tundra.
Measured by shoreline, Hudson Bay is the largest bay in the world (the largest in area being the
Bay of Bengal).
Islands
There are many islands in Hudson Bay, mostly near the eastern coast. All are part of the territory
Nunavut. One group of islands, with a reputable name, is the
Belcher Islands. Another group includes the
Ottawa Islands.
Geology
When Earth's gravitational field was mapped starting in the 1960s a large region of below-average gravity was detected in the Hudson Bay region. This was initially thought to be a result of the crust still being depressed from the weight of the
Laurentide ice sheet during the most recent
Ice Age, but more detailed observations taken by the
GRACE satellite suggest that this effect cannot account for the entirety of the gravitational anomaly. It is thought that convection in the underlying
mantle may be contributing.
The southeastern portion of the bay may be the remnant of a gigantic prehistoric impact structure with the
Belcher Islands forming the central uplift area. Geologists still debate what created the semicircular feature of the bay—some say glaciers, others say an impact that predates the glaciers. The feature is known as the
Nastapoka Arc and has been compared to
Mare Crisium on the
Moon. (See references below for more geological discussion on this and other bay features.)
Coastal communities
The coast of Hudson Bay is extremely sparsely populated; there are only about a dozen villages. Some of these were founded in the 17th and 18th centuries by the Hudson's Bay Company as trading posts, making them part of the oldest settlements in Canada. With the closure of the HBC posts and stores in the second half of the 20th century, many coastal villages are now almost exclusively populated by
Cree and
Inuit people.
Some of the more prominent communities along the Hudson Bay coast are:
Military development
Not until the
Cold War was there any military significance attributed to the region. In the 1950s, a few sites along the coast became part of the
Mid-Canada Line, watching for a potential Soviet bomber attack over the North Pole. The only Arctic, deep water port in Canada is located at Churchill, Manitoba.
Economy
Arctic Bridge
The longer periods of ice-free navigation and the reduction of Arctic Ocean ice coverage have led to interest in
Russia and Canada in the potential for commercial trade routes across the Arctic and into Hudson Bay. The so-called "
Arctic Bridge" would link Churchill, Manitoba and the Russian port of
Murmansk.
See also
