| Carey Islands | |
| Native Name: | Kitsissut |
| Native Name Link: | Greenlandic language |
| Map: | Greenland |
| Archipelago: | Carey Islands |
| Total Islands: | 6 |
| Major Islands: | Nordvestø |
| Location: | Baffin Bay, Greenland |
| Coordinates: | 76.6667°N -72.5°W |
| Elevation M: | 300 |
| Country: | Greenland |
| Country Admin Divisions Title: | Municipality |
| Country Admin Divisions: | Avannaata |
| Population: | uninhabited |
The Carey Islands (da|Carey Øer; kl|Kitsissut) are an island group off Baffin Bay, in Avannaata municipality, northwest Greenland. Located relatively far offshore the Carey Islands are the westernmost point of Greenland as a territory. The sea surrounding the islands is clogged by ice most of the year.
The archipelago consists of six desolate islands, a few small islets and a number of rocks awash.[1] It is located about to the west of Thule Air Base and to the SW of Cape Parry.[2]
The nearest settlement is Moriusaq to the east on the coast of Greenland, abandoned since 2007.
The island group has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports a breeding population of some 6,700 pairs of thick-billed murres, as well as other seabirds including glaucous gulls, razorbills, black guillemots and Atlantic puffins.[3]
The islands had been inhabited by the Inuit in the past; remains of their dwellings were found by Clements Markham in August 1851.[4]
The Carey Islands' were named by the 1616 Bylot-Baffin Arctic expedition after Allwin Carey, one of the financiers of the venture.[5]
Swedish naturalists Alfred Björling and Evald Kallstenius stopped at the Carey Islands in 1892 during an expedition on schooner Ripple to pick up supplies at a cache there. The Ripple, however, was driven on shore and wrecked. The men attempted to sail a small sloop back to Etah, but were forced to return to the Carey Islands.[6]
According to letters left by members of the ill-fated expedition in a cairn on the islands, the remaining four men attempted to sail their open boat 80 miles to Ellesmere Island:
In June 1893, the crew of the Scottish whaler Aurora spotted a wreck on the Carey Islands. They found the Ripple, a man's body buried under a pile of stones, and Björling's letters. No trace of the other four men, or the small boat, was ever found.