The island has little or no vegetation. Where continuous vegetation occurs, it usually consists of hummocks of mosses, lichens, grasses, and sedges. The only woody species, the dwarf willow, grows as a dense twisted mat crawling along the ground. A diverse animal population exists: polar bear, Peary caribou, muskox, northern collared lemming, Arctic wolf, Arctic fox, Arctic hare, and ermine are common. A 2003 sighting of a grizzly bear and grizzly tracks by an expedition from the University of Alberta represent the most northerly reports of grizzly bears ever recorded. Melville Island is one of two major breeding grounds for the brant goose. DNA analysis and field observations suggest that these birds may be distinct from other brant stocks. Numbering 4,000–8,000 birds, this could be one of the rarest goose stocks in the world.
History
The first European to visit Melville Island was the British explorer, Sir William Parry, in 1819. He was forced to spend the winter at what is now called "Winter Harbour," until 1 August 1820, owing to freeze-up of the sea. The island is named for Robert Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville, who was First Sea Lord at the time. In the search for Franklin's lost expedition, its east coast was explored as far as Bradford Point by Abraham Bradford in 1851, while its north and west coasts were surveyed by Francis Leopold McClintock, Richard Vesey Hamilton, and George Henry Richards in 1853. On January 30, 1920, The Pioche Record reported that Icelandic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson discovered a lost cache from the 1853 McClintock expedition on Melville Island. Clothing and food from the cache was in excellent condition despite the harsh arctic conditions. In 1930, a large sandstone rock marking Parry's 1819 wintering site at Winter Harbour, approximately long and high, was designated a National Historic Site of Canada.
Melville has surfaced as a candidate for natural gas deposits. The island was believed to have deposits of coal and oil shale since the first half of the 20th century. The first Canadian Arctic island exploratory well was spudded in 1961 at Winter Harbour. It drilled Lower Paleozoic strata to a total depth of. In the 1970s, the northern portion of the island on the east side of the Sabine Peninsula proved to contain a major gas field, known as Drake Point. The lease was owned by Panarctic Oils, a joint operation with the Canadian Government.
