[4] Murchison Promontory extends along the northern edge of the Boothia Peninsula, at right angles to the Bellot Strait, which separates it from Somerset Island.
[7][8] The strait was then named after Bellot, who drowned the following year after falling through the ice in the Wellington Channel.
[9] In July 1859, McClintock named the promontory, which his expedition determined to be the northernmost point of the mainland, after Royal Geographical Society president Roderick Murchison.
Murchison was a prominent supporter of Jane Franklin in her efforts towards a continued search for her husband, which included the sponsorship of McClintock's expedition.
"Scotty" Gall passed the promontory on his ship Aklavik on the first crossing of the Bellot Strait,[11] travelling from the western shore to the eastern for the Hudson's Bay Company.