The island has an area of 143.6 square kilometres (55.4 sq mi) and a shoreline of 59.6 kilometres (37 mi).[2] Ella Island is separated from the western shore of the fjord by the Narwhal Sound.
The Sirius Dog Sled Patrol maintains a small base on the northern coast of the island which is staffed only in summer.[3][4]
On 16 September 2023 an unwitnessed tsunami that had originated in a rock-slide in Dickson Fjord[7] struck the northern part of Ella Island, penetrating 50 metres (55 yd) inland and devastating the Sirius Dog Sled Patrol station, washing much of it into the sea. The station was closed for the winter, and no one was present when the wave hit. The cruise shipOcean Albatros arrived on the scene on 17 September and contacted the Joint Arctic Command with the first report of the damage. On 19 September, personnel from the Sirius Dog sled Patrol and the Royal Danish Navypatrol vesselHDMS Knud Rasmussen began clean-up and salvage work at the site, which they completed by 21 September despite a 20 September warning by officials to ships in the area to avoid putting crew members or passengers ashore because of a risk of additional tsunamis.[8][9]
^Angela Carrillo-Ponce, Sebastian Heimann, Gesa M. Petersen, Thomas R. Walter, Simone Cesca, Torsten Dahm. The 16 September 2023 Greenland Megatsunami: Analysis and Modeling of the Source and a Week-Long, Monochromatic Seismic Signal. The Seismic Record, 2024; 4 (3): 172 DOI: 10.1785/0320240013