The island was named by Otto Sverdrup for Oslo brewer Ellef Ringnes, one of the sponsors of his expedition.

[1] The first known European sighting of Ellef Ringnes Island was in 1901 by a sledging party consisting of Gunerius Isachsen and Sverre Hassel, members of the Second Norwegian Arctic Expedition of 1898–1902, which was under the command of Otto Sverdrup.

[2] In 1948. the Canadian Department of Transport and the United States Weather Bureau jointly established a meteorological station at Isachsen.

A High Arctic Weather Station (HAWS) called Isachsen lies on the west coast of the island.

It was opened April 3, 1948 as part of a joint Canada-United States military effort to support a weather station network.

The island is characterized by broad lowlands and locally by dissected uplands which reflect the diversity of structures and lithological characters of the bedrock formations.

The island is rimmed by low shelving coastal areas, domal structures (salt dome) with cores of diapiric anhydrite and secondary gypsum constitute striking features of the landscape.

Ellef Ringnes Island is interesting to biologists because of its extremely rigorous Arctic environment and its resulting meagre flora and fauna.

Accordingly, Ellef Ringnes probably supports fewer forms of life than any other ice-free Arctic land mass of comparable size (13,000 km2 [5,000 sq mi]).