Arctic

The Canadian Arctic is well known for its diverse wildlife, a rich native culture and spectacular scenery. For those seeking the truly remote, a voyage deep within the Arctic Circle offers pure adventure where few have ventured.

This region refers to the area of Canada above the Arctic Circle scaling an expanse of wilderness from the Northwest Territories to the Yukon Mountains and the Arctic archipelago of Nunavat. With a relatively small population of around 100,000, nearly sixty per cent of Canada’s Inuit inhabit this area.

The Nunavat archipelago covers an expanse of about 2.2 million sq km ranging from Ellesmere Island to the north, Baffin Island to the east and westerly Victoria Island.

Ellesmere Island contains a National Park and vast areas of pure wilderness, fjords and High Arctic glaciers and icecaps. The island’s remote and northerly location, just 800 km from the North Pole, reaches to Cape Columbia, which is the most northerly point of North America. The spectacular mountainous terrain will leave you in ore of this beautiful island ‘on top of the world’.

Travelling south from Ellesmere Island you reach the smaller Island of Cornwallis where you will find one of the coldest inhabited places in the world, Resolute, with an average yearly temperature of -14.5 degrees centigrade. A small Inuit community on the south coast, with a population of just 200, was founded after WWII when an air-base was built by the Canadian Government to protect territorial claims. The airport is now the hub of the town which forms the base for many explorers to the region.

Westerly from Cornwallis Island is Baffin Island, named after the explorer William Baffin. It is the largest island in Canada and forms part of the Nunavat archipelago. With a population of 11,000 the capital ofNunavat, Iqaluit, meaning ‘salmon trout’ is located on the south eastern coast. The island comprises a mountainous region - the Baffin Mountains. Mount Odin is the highest peak standing between 2,143 m and 2,147 m high. Baffin Island’s wildlife includes Arctic fox, polar bear, Arctic wolf, barren-ground caribou and the Arctic hare.