The Kitikmeot Sea is a semi-enclosed, east-west waterway in the southern Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA). In the present work, the ice conditions, stratification and circulation of the Kitikmeot Sea are diagnosed using numerical simulations with a 1/12 • resolution. The physical oceanographic conditions of the Kitikmeot Sea are different from channels in the northern CAA due to the existence of a substantial ice-free period each year. The consequences of such ice conditions are twofold. First, through fluctuations of external forcings, such as solar radiation and wind stress, acting directly or indirectly on the sea surface, the seasonal ice coverage leads to significant seasonal variations in both stratification and circulation. Our simulation results suggest that such variations include freshening and deepening of the surface layer, whose salinity can reach as low as 15 psu during the peak runoff season, and significantly stronger along-shore currents driven directly by the wind stress during the ice-free season.The second consequence is that the sea ice is not landfast but can move freely during the melting season. By analyzing the relative importance of thermodynamic (freezing/melting) and dynamic (ice movement) processes to the ice dynamics, our simulation results suggest that there exists a net inflow of sea ice into the Kitikmeot Sea, which melts locally each summer. The movement of sea ice thus provides a significant freshwater pathway, which contributes ∼ 14 km 3 /year of freshwater to the Kitikmeot Sea on average, equivalent to a third of freshwater input from runoff from the land.