This channel separates Saunders Island and Wolstenholme Island from the Greenland mainland . Its minimum width is , between Wolstenholme Island and Cape Atholl , the mainland point at its southeastern end . There is a tombolo named '' Uummannaq '' on the mainland shore at the eastern end of the sound by the former settlement of Pituffik . This strait was named after 17th-century English navigator Robert Bylot , who led two expeditions to find the Northwest Passage . In the winter of 1849 – 1850 under Commander James Saunders of got frozen-in in the sound during an Arctic expedition to search and resupply Captain Sir James Clark Ross ' venture , who in turn had sailed in 1848 trying to locate the whereabouts of Sir John Franklin 's expedition . While his ship was trapped by ice Commander Saunders named numerous landmarks in that area . In 1968 a B-52 bomber carrying four thermonuclear bombs crashed in the ice of the Bylot Sound spreading contaminated material over the whole sector
crashed
1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash
Bylot Sound