Fort Conger

Fort Conger

The Fort Conger is a former settlement, military fort and scientific research station in the Qikiqtaaluk region of Nunavut, Canada. The settlement was founded in 1881 as an Arctic exploration camp. Fort Conger is situated on the northern shore of Lady Franklin Bay in Grinnell Land, on the north-eastern part of Ellesmere Island, inside the Quttinirpaaq National Park. The area is dominated by grasses and sedges. The area around the harbor is rugged and boasts high cliffs. Today uninhabited, but it was one of the few formerly manned stations on the Queen Elizabeth Islands. Prior to the establishment of Fort Conger, the Discovery Harbor was used as a wintering place by the crew of the HMS Discovery, during the British Arctic Expedition of 1875. In 1881, Fort Conger was established as a research base during the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition. For the next two years, twenty-five men, among them officers, soldiers and Inuit, lived and researched at Fort Conger. Robert Peary reached the settlement during his 1899 expedition to the geographic North Pole. Two other teams of the Peary expedition returned to Fort Conger later in 1905 and 1908. Between 1915 and 1935, other explorers made the place their base. The Macgregor Arctic Expedition attempted to reoccupy settlement in 1937.