Devon Island lies about 100 kilometres north of Resolute across Lancaster Sound and is the world's largest island with no permanent human population. Getting there requires a charter flight from Resolute, which makes it accessible only to expeditions and well-funded private visits. The island's interior is a polar desert of bare rock and ice, almost entirely devoid of vegetation — an extraordinarily alien landscape that has drawn comparisons to Mars.
The Haughton Crater, a 23-kilometre-wide impact structure near the island's north coast, has been studied by NASA's Haughton-Mars Project since 1997. The crater's permafrost soil, extreme cold, aridity, and UV radiation levels approximate Mars surface conditions more closely than almost any other place on Earth. Expedition operators based in Resolute occasionally include Devon Island overflights or landings as part of High Arctic adventure packages.