Kaffeklubben Island or Coffee Club Island (; ) is an uninhabited island lying off the northern shore of Greenland. It contains the northernmost undisputed point of land on Earth.
History
Kaffeklubben Island does not appear to have ever been inhabited. The northern part of Peary Landknown as Johannes J. Jensen Land was at least visited by members of the Thule peoples, based on archaeological evidence found in 2023 near Bliss Bay, approximately south. The nearest ruins from the older Independence I culture are located at Cape Bridgman, some to the southeast.
The first recorded sighting of Kaffeklubben Island was made by the American explorer Robert Peary in 1900, who believed that Cape Morris Jesup on the mainland was the world's northernmost point of land and who declined to name the island. The island itself was not visited until 1921, when the Danish explorer Lauge Koch set foot on the island and named it after the coffee club in the University of Copenhagen Geological Museum.
In 1969, a Canadian team calculated that the island's northernmost tip is farther north than Cape Morris Jesup, the northernmost point of mainland Greenland, thus claiming its record as the most northerly point of land.
In 2023, an American and Greenlandic team led by Brian Buma and sponsored by National Geographic visited to study the flora and fauna, and establish the northernmost terrestrial ecosystem study in the world. They also discovered the world's northernmost Indigenous site (archaeological) on Greenland near this island.
Geography and geology
thumb|A navigational chart of northern Greenland and Canada's [[Ellesmere Island; "Kaffeklubben Ø" is visible in the middle right.|alt=A polar navigational chart of far north Greenland and Canada north of 80 degrees latitude, with grid lines and color-coding of green and white based on elevation and ice cover.]]
thumb|Kaffeklubben Island or Coffee Club Island (Danish: Kaffeklubben Ø; Greenlandic: Inuit Qeqertaat
Kaffeklubben Island is from the geographic North Pole. The island lies off Cape James Hill, northwest of Bliss Bay, approximately east of Cape Morris Jesup, a little east of a central point along the northern coast of Greenland. Its most northerly point is 4.4 km north of that of Cape Morris Jesup. It is approximately long, and approximately across at its widest point. The highest point is approximately above sea level. The aforementioned National Geographic 2023 expedition determined that the northernmost life was a species of Tortula moss (Tortula mucronifolia) and an Arctic poppy (Papaver radicatum). A specimen of a stoat, named Randall, was also found on the island.
See also
- List of islands of Greenland
- List of northernmost items
References
- https://doi.org/10.1017/S0032247425000051