The Water Both Queen Maud Gulf and Coronation Gulf are shallow basins averaging less than 100 m in depth and shoaling progressively towards the shore.
Ice cover is complete for about nine months of the year and is predominantly landfast ice .
Many of the channels and straits are ice-choked throughout the summer, as Franklin discovered in 1847. He and the rest of the crew of the Erebus and Terror perished on King William Island that year. More than 50 years later, the quest for the Northwest Passage was finally realized when Amundsen sailed through these same waters on his way west. The coastline is regular, with moderately high rolling headlands along the western mainland coast, gently sloped beaches and sandy tidal flats occurring in the east and north. Numerous islands, islets , inlets , passages and bays are found throughout.