Baffin Island is the fifth-largest island in the world. It sits in Canada's eastern Arctic, separated from Quebec and Labrador by Hudson Strait to the south and facing Greenland across Davis Strait to the east. It is home to approximately 14,000 people, most of them Inuit, in communities scattered along its fjord-cut coastline. Auyuittuq National Park in the island's eastern section — the word is Inuktitut for "the land that never melts" — is one of the most dramatically beautiful wilderness areas in Canada and one of the most remote national parks on Earth. Getting there is an expedition. Being there is extraordinary.
Auyuittuq National Park
The park covers 19,500 square kilometres of Arctic highland and is most commonly accessed through Pangnirtung, a community of about 1,400 people at the base of the fiord of the same name. The Park entrance, at the head of Pangnirtung Fiord, is reached by boat in summer (about 30 minutes from the community) or by snowmobile in winter and spring. From the entrance, the Akshayuk Pass trail runs 97 kilometres north through the pass to the community of Qikiqtarjuaq on the northern coast — one of the classic Arctic wilderness traversals in Canada.
The landscape in the park is on a scale that resets your sense of proportion. The valley walls rise 2,000 metres on either side of the pass. The Auyuittuq Glacier spills from the plateau above. The Penny Ice Cap — one of the largest bodies of ice in the eastern Arctic — feeds glaciers that extend down to the valley floor at several points. Mount Thor, accessible via the pass, has the world's greatest vertical drop of any cliff face on Earth: 1,250 metres of near-vertical granite. The scale is not something photographs convey effectively.
When to Go
The park has two distinct visitor seasons. The May–June period offers skiing and snowshoeing on the frozen river and sea ice, dramatic spring light, and the possibility of encountering polar bears (the sea ice period is when bears are most active). Summer, from late June through August, brings the midnight sun and open-water access by boat. The brief summer is when most hiking occurs, though snowfields persist in the pass throughout the season and weather changes rapidly.
The midnight sun at Auyuittuq's latitude means 24 hours of daylight in June and July — the first experience of continuous Arctic daylight is genuinely disorienting, and the quality of the light at 2 a.m. on a clear night, with the valley walls turning pink and the ice on the plateau glowing, is unlike any other light you will encounter.
Wildlife
Polar bears are the primary large predator in the park, and safety protocols for bear encounters are mandatory for park entry. Visitors must carry bear-deterrents (bear spray or air horns are minimum; guides may carry firearms) and attend a park orientation. The rules are not bureaucratic excess — the bears are real and present, and encounters require appropriate response. The park staff provide comprehensive briefing.
Other wildlife includes Arctic foxes, caribou (which cross the park seasonally), Arctic hares, ringed seals in the coastal areas, and a variety of Arctic seabirds on the coastal cliffs. The fiord waters around Pangnirtung host beluga whales and, occasionally, narwhal.
Getting There
Iqaluit is Nunavut's capital and the main hub for flights into Baffin Island. Canadian North and Air Canada connect Iqaluit with Ottawa and Montreal. From Iqaluit, Canadian North serves Pangnirtung and Qikiqtarjuaq, the two gateways to the park. The logistics are complex and the costs are high — northern aviation is expensive, accommodation in communities is limited, and guides are essential for the backcountry. Budget $3,000 to $5,000 or more per person for a meaningful visit including flights, accommodation, and guide services.
"Baffin Island is not a comfortable destination. It's cold, it's remote, it's expensive, and it asks more of you than most places. And nothing I've seen in thirty years of travel compares to standing at the foot of a 2,000-metre cliff in the midnight sun with glacial ice visible on the plateau above."
Baffin Island is for the traveller who has decided that remoteness and difficulty are features, not bugs. It rewards preparation and delivers an experience of the Arctic that no well-appointed northern tourist infrastructure can replicate.
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