Buckingham Island is a Canadian arctic island

Canadian Arctic Archipelago

The Canadian Arctic Archipelago, also known as the Arctic Archipelago, is a Canadian archipelago north of the Canadian mainland in the Arctic...

 located in Norwegian Bay

Norwegian Bay

Norwegian Bay is an Arctic ocean waterway in Qikiqtaaluk Region. Nunavut, Canada. Amund Ringnes Island is to the northwest , and Axel Heiberg Island to the north , Ellesmere Island is to the east, and Devon Island is to the south...

 in the Canadian territory of Nunavut

Nunavut

Nunavut is the largest and newest federal territory of Canada; it was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, though the actual boundaries had been established in 1993...

. The island lies immediately southwest of Graham Island and 50 km (31.1 mi) east of Cornwall Island. Buckingham Island is 10 km (6.2 mi) wide and has an area of 137 km² (52.9 sq mi). It is a part of the Queen Elizabeth Islands

Queen Elizabeth Islands

The Queen Elizabeth Islands are the northernmost cluster of islands in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, split between Nunavut and Northwest Territories in Northern Canada.-Geography:...

.

Its highest peak is named Mount Windsor. Both the peak and the island itself are named after royal palaces. Capt. Edward Belcher

Edward Belcher

Admiral Sir Edward Belcher, KCB , was a British naval officer and explorer. He was the great-grandson of Governor Jonathan Belcher. His wife, Diana Jolliffe, was the stepdaughter of Captain Peter Heywood.-Early life:...

, searching for John Franklin

John Franklin

Rear-Admiral Sir John Franklin KCH FRGS RN was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. Franklin also served as governor of Tasmania for several years. In his last expedition, he disappeared while attempting to chart and navigate a section of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic...

in 1852-1854, described the island's surrounds:

"The heavy, even solid nature of the floe surrounding, or, where 'nipped,' the almost berg-like lumps that protruded, afforded a fair inference that the sea is seldom seriously disturbed in these latitudes : on the other hand, if we take into consideration the exuviae of whales and other animals, found at every elevation, even to the summits of hills above 800 feet; the extraordinary wear or abrasion of the outlines, which nothing we have experienced could effect, it almost leads one to imagine that nature at some moment, possibly past and for ever, fatally perhaps for those we seek, has piled up layer over layer to effect what otherwise nothing but a recent deluge could account for."(Belcher, 1855)