Hudson Bay, sometimes called Hudson's Bay (usually historically), is a large body of saltwater in northeastern Canada with a surface area of . It is located north of Ontario, west of Quebec, northeast of Manitoba, and southeast of Nunavut, but politically entirely part of Nunavut. It is an inland marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. The Hudson Strait provides a connection to the Labrador Sea and the Atlantic Ocean in the northeast, while the Foxe Channel connects Hudson Bay with the Arctic Ocean in the north. The Hudson Bay drainage basin drains a very large area, about , that includes parts of southeastern Nunavut, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, all of Manitoba, and parts of the U.S. states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Montana.
Hudson Bay's southern arm is called James Bay.
Native names The Eastern Cree name for Hudson and James Bay is (southern dialect) or (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
The bay is named after Henry Hudson, an Englishman sailing for the Dutch East India Company, and after whom the river that he explored in 1609 is also named. Hudson Bay encompasses , making it the second-largest water body using the term "bay" in the world (after the Bay of Bengal). The bay is relatively shallow and is considered an epicontinental sea, with an average depth of about (compared to in the Bay of Bengal). It is about long and wide.Private Tutor . Infoplease.com. Retrieved on 12 April 2014. On the east it is connected with the Arctic Ocean (Davis Strait) by Hudson Strait; on the north, with the Arctic Ocean by Foxe Basin (which is not considered part of the bay), and Fury and Hecla Strait.
Hudson Bay is often considered part of the Arctic Ocean: the International Hydrographic Organization, in its 2002 working draft of Limits of Oceans and Seas, defined Hudson Bay, with its outlet extending from 62.5 to 66.5 degrees north (just a few miles south of the Arctic Circle) as being part of the Arctic Ocean, specifically "Arctic Ocean Subdivision 9.11". Other authorities include it in the Atlantic, in part because of its greater water budget connection with that ocean.
History
The search for a western route to Cathay and the East Indies, which had been actively pursued since the days of Christopher Columbus and John Cabot, in the latter part of the 15th century, directly resulted in the first sighting of Hudson Bay by Europeans. English explorers and colonists named Hudson Bay after Sir Henry Hudson who explored the bay beginning 2 August 1610, on his ship Discovery. On his fourth voyage to North America, Hudson worked his way around Greenland's west coast and into the bay, mapping much of its eastern coast. Discovery became trapped in the ice over the winter, and the crew survived onshore at the southern tip of James Bay. In the spring, as the ice receded, Henry Hudson expressed a desire to continue exploring the uncharted region. However, on 22 June 1611, the crew mutinied. They left Hudson and others adrift in a small boat. The fate of Hudson and the other men stranded with him remains undetermined. Nevertheless, there is little evidence in historical documents to suggest that they persisted for a long time thereafter. In May 1612, Sir Thomas Button sailed from England with two ships to look for Henry Hudson, and to continue the search for the Northwest Passage to Asia.
In 1668, Nonsuch reached the bay and traded for beaver pelts, leading to the creation of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), which still bears the historic name. The HBC negotiated a trading monopoly from the English Crown for the Hudson Bay watershed, called Rupert's Land. In 1670, the English Crown granted a charter to facilitate fur trading within the Hudson Bay drainage basin. France contested this grant by sending several military expeditions to the region, but abandoned its claim in the Treaty of Utrecht (April 1713).
The Treaty of Utrecht, signed on 11 April 1713, marked a significant agreement between Britain and France. The treaty was negotiated in Utrecht, Netherlands, and marked a crucial stage in the conclusion of the War of the Spanish Succession. Its provisions had a significant impact in shaping the postwar landscape and establishing a new order in both Europe and North America. French concessions in North America as outlined in the Treaty of Utrecht included: Hudson Bay region, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland.
During this period, the HBC built several factories (forts and trading posts) along the coast at the mouth of the major rivers (such as Fort Severn; York Factory, Churchill; and the Prince of Wales Fort). The strategic locations were bases for inland exploration. More importantly, they were also trading posts with Indigenous peoples who came to them with furs from their trapping season. The HBC shipped the furs to Europe and continued to use some of these posts well into the 20th century.
The HBC's trade monopoly was abolished in 1870, by a British Order in Council called the Deed of Surrender, ceded Rupert's Land to Canada, an area of approximately , as part of the Northwest Territories. In 1912, the western shore south of 60° and, following the Quebec Boundaries Extension Act, 1912, all the eastern shore were transferred to the adjacent provinces, but the bay and offshore islands remained part of the Northwest Territories. Starting in 1913, the bay was extensively charted by the Canadian government's to develop it for navigation. This mapping progress led to the establishment of Churchill, Manitoba, as a deep-sea port for wheat exports in 1929, after unsuccessful attempts at Port Nelson.
The Port of Churchill was an important shipping link for trade with Europe and Russia until its closure in 2016 by owner OmniTRAX. The port and the Hudson Bay Railway were then sold to the Arctic Gateway Group—a consortium of First Nations, local governments, and corporate investors—in 2018.
On 9 July 2019, ships resupplying Arctic communities began stopping at the port for additional cargo, and the port began shipping grain again on 7 September 2019.
Geography and climate
Extent The International Hydrographic Organization defines the northern limit of Hudson Bay as follows:
Climate
Northern Hudson Bay has a polar climate (Köppen: ET) being one of the few places in the world where this type of climate is found south of 60 °N, going farther south towards Quebec, where Inukjuak is still dominated by the tundra. From Arviat, Nunavut, to the west to the south and southeast prevails the subarctic climate (Köppen: Dfc). This is because in the central summer months, heat waves can advance from the hot land and make the weather milder, with the result that the average temperature surpasses . The bay receives water from various surrounding rivers and currents originating from the Foxe Basin in the north, resulting in a counterclockwise overall flow. At the extreme southern tip of the extension known as James Bay arises a humid continental climate with a longer and generally hotter summer. (Köppen: Dfb). The average annual temperature in almost the entire bay is around or below. In the extreme northeast, winter temperatures average as low as .
The Hudson Bay region has very low year-round average temperatures. The average annual temperature for Churchill at 59°N is and Inukjuak, facing cool westerlies in summer at 58°N, an even colder . By comparison, Magadan, in a comparable position at 59°N on the Eurasian landmass in the Russian Far East and with a similar subarctic climate, has an annual average of . Vis-à-vis geographically closer Europe, contrasts stand much more extreme. Arkhangelsk at 64°N in northwestern Russia has an average of ,GHCN climatic monthly data, GISS, using 1995–2007 annual averages while the mild continental coastline of Stockholm at 59°N on the shore of an analogous large hyposaline marine inlet – the Baltic Sea – has an annual average of .
Water temperature peaks at 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 led to decreases in the extent of the sea ice in Hudson Bay by 19.5% per decade. As well as a lengthening of the ice-free period, which was as short as four months in the late 17th century.General Survey of World Climatology, Landsberg ed., (1984), Elsevier.
The polar climate of Hudson Bay means it is home for a variety of polar climate animals, in the Western Hudson Bay (WHB) beluga whale population is the most significant known group in the Canadian Arctic, estimated to consist of approximately 54,473 individuals.
Waters
Hudson Bay has a lower average salinity level than that of ocean water. The main causes are 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 annually, the Hudson Bay watershed covering much of Canada, many rivers and streams discharging into the bay), and the limited connection with the Atlantic Ocean and its higher salinity. Sea ice is about three times the annual river flow into the bay, and its annual freezing and thawing significantly alters the salinity of the surface layer. Although its exact effects are not fully understood currently, the cyclonic storms in the bay are responsible for synoptic variability of salinity along the coast.
One consequence of the lower salinity of the bay is that the freezing point of the water is higher than in the rest of the world's oceans, thus increasing the time that the bay is ice covered. Since 1960, the surge of river inflows during the winter has decreased the season of sea ice coverage by more than one month.
The lower salinity of the bay has effects on the distribution and prevalence of common marine life such as micro algae. Research has shown that the lower salinity of the Hudson Bay limits the growth of micro algae, which causes a notable change in biomass along the bay's salinity gradient.
Shores The western shores of the bay are a lowland known as the Hudson Bay Lowlands, covering , and are Canada's largest continuous peatland. Much of the landform has been shaped by the actions of glaciers and the shrinkage of the bay over long periods of time. The coastal area, in a region characterized by permanently frozen layers of soil, known as permafrost, is a low-lying wetland that receives water from lakes and fast-flowing rivers. Signs of numerous former beach fronts 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 maternity denning area for polar bears.C. Michael Hogan (2008) Polar Bear: Ursus maritimus, globalTwitcher.com, ed. Nicklas Stromberg
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.The northern shores are tundra.
Measured by shoreline, Hudson Bay is the second-largest bay in the world (after the Bay of Bengal).
The distinctive arcuate segment on the eastern shore of Hudson Bay is referred to as the Nastapoka arc.
Islands There are many islands in Hudson Bay, mostly near the eastern coast, all of which, including those in James Bay, are part of Nunavut and lie in the Arctic Archipelago. Several are disputed by the Cree.
Notable groups include the Belcher Islands in the centre of the Nastapoka arc, and the Ottawa Islands near the eastern shore of the Hudson Bay.
Geology