Chesterfield Inlet

Chesterfield Inlet reaches inland from the western shore of Hudson Bay to Baker Lake, which receives the waters of the Thelon River. Inuit hunters gathered at the mouth of this long waterway in late spring and early summer to hunt seals, and Thule Inuit used the area as a summer settlement. The inlet connects the coastal hunting grounds with a vast country of lakes and rivers farther inland.

European navigators looking for a northwest passage took an interest in the inlet in the eighteenth century. In 1747 William Moor identified it as a possible route west, and the Hudson's Bay Company sent further expeditions to investigate. William Christopher travelled through the inlet to the end of Baker Lake in 1762, showing that it did not provide the passage to Asia sought by the explorers.