The British claim to the area was based on the discoveries of Martin Frobisher (1535–1594) in the 16th century.

The British government passed control of the islands to Canada in 1880 by means of an imperial order in council, the Adjacent Territories Order, under the royal prerogative.

[1][2] That was made out of fear of the United States' interest in the area as part of the Monroe Doctrine.

The islands were never part of Rupert's Land (Hudson Bay drainage basin) or the North-Western Territory (the mainland north and west of Rupert's Land), and both of those trade monopolies were managed by the Hudson's Bay Company.

Canada had acquired those regions in 1870 and created the new Province of Manitoba, originally a square 18 times less its current size, as well as the new Northwest Territories, which by 1999 had ceded land to create today's Yukon and Nunavut Territories and the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta, and ceded land to existing provinces' expansions into northern Ontario, northern Quebec, all of Manitoba, and the northeastern tip of British Columbia.