The tragic history of the largest uninhabited island on Earth

At 74º latitude, Devon Island is nearly 5,000 miles north of Hawaii—and more than five times the size. Remote, windswept, and harsh, the isle is classified as a polar desert, with barren mountains rising above frost-worn beaches, where seabirds fill the skies and the occasional muskox wanders along the shore. Lying along the storied Northwest Passage in Nunavut, Canada, Devon Island remains uninhabited.

But that’s not to say humans haven’t tried. People have failed to live on the Arctic isle for centuries, with the last settlement occurring in 1951. Ancient Inuit settlements sit alongside a military ghost town, relics of doomed expeditions, and even a NASA research station perched at the edge of a massive crater. Today, Devon Island showcases the long, long art of human survival to its few visitors.

Devon’s forgotten stories

If Devon Island sounds familiar, that’s likely because of the Lost Franklin Expedition. In 1845, 129 men on the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror set out to map the fabled Northwest Passage for Great Britain—never to return. Search parties began in 1848, and the first Franklin clue was found in 1850: a naturalist’s rake discovered on Devon Island. Other finds included a piece of canvas marked “Terror”; 700 empty, lead-lined meat tins; and dozens more traces of the Franklin crew, from clothes to iron, rope, and pipes.

(Seeking to solve the Arctic’s biggest mystery, they ended up trapped in ice at the top of the world.)

In 1852, Sir Edward Belcher led the last rescue attempt for the missing men. Staying on Devon Island, the team lined a small bay with survey and marker cairns—an area now known as Port Refuge National Historic Site. Though Belcher’s rescue mission was unsuccessful, one of his ships, the HMS Resolute, would find quite the legacy. Its timbers later helped build one of the world’s most iconic pieces of furniture—the Resolute Desk, still used by U.S. presidents today.

Once the Northwest Passage was successfully mapped some 70 years later, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) wanted to stake their flag on Devon Island. In 1924, three RCMP officers—and 52 forcibly displaced Inuit—were sent to rule over the high Arctic at Dundas Harbour, where the island’s ragged cliffs and rocky beaches overlook Lancaster Sound. “It really was about asserting a presence—they weren’t necessarily policing,” says Kaylee Baxter, an archaeologist with Adventure Canada. “It was more about boots on the ground, keeping other nations from claiming the Arctic as their own.”

Within three years, two of the officers were dead: One had committed suicide, and the other had accidentally shot himself—or so the story goes. As for the remaining officer and Inuit families, they soon abandoned their isolated home. The RCMP shut down the post in 1933, reopened it in 1945, and then shut it down for good in 1951.

The regularly maintained graves of the two officers remain, resting on a hill above the forlorn outpost, in the most northern cemetery in the world. The grave of an Inuit girl lies unceremoniously a few steps away. “It’s a pretty accurate representation of colonization in the Arctic,” says Baxter.

Compared to Devon Island’s first inhabitants, Canada’s “Mounties” and those wayward British explorers are modern visitors. A stone’s throw from Belcher’s cairns at Port Refuge National Historic Site, archaeologists have found artifacts up to 4,000 years old, offering evidence of ancestral Inuit contact with the medieval Norse colonies of Greenland. Asiatic artifacts have been found here, too, denoting far-reaching, northern trade routes spanning half the globe.

(As ice melts, the Inuit strive to keep their culture alive.)

At Dundas Harbour, just steps from the RCMP post lies the rocky remains of a roughly 1,000-year-old ancestral Inuit “neighborhood.” The Morin Point Thule site holds clues to the first pioneers crossing the eastern Arctic—and it’s eroding away. “It’s a great example of coastal erosion at archaeological sites,” says Baxter, who is helping to record the site before it disappears. “A great example in the worst way.”

Simulating survival on Mars

NASA and the Mars Institute are the latest to take on Devon Island’s challenges. With the island’s extreme cold, limited communication systems, and lack of sunlight and vegetation, scientists are carrying out analog missions—or practice runs—simulating Mars exploration. The Haughton–Mars Project allows astronauts to train in formidable conditions, test equipment to its limits, and research plant growth and long-duration spaceflight challenges.

Of course, the island is deemed too harsh for a permanent research station. Modular summer tents are set up at the 14-mile-wide Haughton impact crater, one of the northernmost craters on the planet. But even NASA’s best-equipped teams avoid the island’s brutal winters.

Planning your own expedition

While Devon Island may be uninhabited, Nunavut’s northern communities, like nearby Pond Inlet and Arctic Bay, are very much alive. “There’s so much culture here,” says Jason Edmunds, vice-chair of the board at Travel Nunavut and one of Canada’s only Inuit expedition leaders. “When you’re in the region, think about the culture itself. Don’t just concentrate on the impacts of another culture on it.”

Today, most visitors explore Devon Island and its Arctic neighbors via expedition cruise. Companies like Adventure Canada and Lindblad Expeditions offer itineraries through the Northwest Passage, where travelers can engage in wildlife viewing, hiking, and exploring ancient Inuit settlements and relics from past expeditions. Though, it’s essential to understand the crux of expedition cruising. Your itinerary will flex with the ice, just like every journey here has since that first Inuit explorer.