The Eklund Islands are a group of islands which rise through the ice near the southwest end of George VI Sound

George VI Sound

George VI Sound or Canal Jorge VI or Canal Presidente Sarmiento or Canal Seaver or King George VI Sound or King George the Sixth Sound is a major bay/fault depression, 300 miles long in the shape of the letter J, which skirts the east and south shores of Alexander Island, separating it from the...

 towards the south of the Antarctic Peninsula

Antarctic Peninsula

The Antarctic Peninsula is the northernmost part of the mainland of Antarctica. It extends from a line between Cape Adams and a point on the mainland south of Eklund Islands....

.

The largest island, 5 nautical miles (9 km) in extent and rising to 410 m, was discovered in December 1940 by Finn Ronne

Finn Ronne

Finn Ronne was a U.S. Antarctic explorer.-Background:Finn Ronne was born in Horten, in Vestfold county, Norway. His father, Martin Rønne , was a polar explorer and served in Roald Amundsen's successful expedition to the South Pole...

 and Carl R. Eklund

Carl R. Eklund

Carl R. Eklund was a leading American specialist in ornithology and geographic research in both the north and south polar regions.From 1939-41 he served as ornithologist at the East Base of the U.S. Antarctic Service. This was the first modern US. Government-sponsored expedition to Antarctica, and...

 of the United States Antarctic Service (USAS) during their 1,097-mile sledge journey south from Stonington Island

Stonington Island

Stonington Island is a rocky island lying 1 mile northeast of Neny Island in the eastern part of Marguerite Bay, off the west coast of Graham Land. Stonington Island is located at . Stonington Island, 0.4 miles long from northwest to southeast and 0.2 miles wide formerly connected by a drifted snow...

 to the southwest part of George VI Sound and return. At that time this large island, named by Ronne for Eklund, ornithologist and assistant biologist of the expedition, was the only land protruding above an area of hummocky ice. V. E. Fuchs and R. J. Adie of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS) sledged to the southwest part of George VI Sound in 1949, at which time, because of a recession of the ice in the sound

Sound

Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...

, they were able to determine that the island discovered by Ronne and Eklund is the largest of a group of mainly ice-covered islands. On the basis of original discovery, the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names

Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names

The Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names is an advisory committee of the United States Board on Geographic Names responsible for recommending names for features in Antarctica...

(US-ACAN) recommends that the name Eklund be applied to the island group rather than the single island discovered by Ronne and Eklund.