It was first noted by Europeans during the search for Franklin's lost expedition around 1858 when passed in open water by an explorer's ship, who did not land.

Sometime in the early 1970s, five unmarked, sealed 45 gallon drums of aviation fuel were cached near the point, possibly by an oil exploration company.

In the summer of 1973, Stewart D. Macdonald of the Canadian National Museum of Natural Sciences discovered the island was the first known permanent nesting colony of endangered ivory gulls in the New World.

[1] The island is characterized by raised beaches of shattered sandstone boulders and glacial erratics, coastal sand bars, gravel ridges, freshwater ponds and permafrost springs.

A herd of seven Peary caribou was observed from Seymour on the north coast of nearby Helena Island in the summer of 1977.

Ringed seals are common on the surrounding pack ice, with up to 100 being recorded in view basking around Seymour Island.

Nesting birds include red-throated loon, king and common eider, long-tailed duck (oldsquaw), brant goose, Arctic tern, purple sandpiper, and snow bunting.

In July 1976, three colour-marked and banded ivory gulls from Seymour were recorded 1,000 km (620 mi) southeast on Prince Leopold Island three weeks later.

[3] The island supports Canada's largest known ivory gull breeding colony, approximately 10–12 percent of the known Canadian population.

In 2005, Gilchrist and Mallory postulated that Seymour Island gulls may represent forty percent of the surviving Canadian population of this species.