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Baffin Island -

Baffin Island is a prime destination for the traveler seeking solace in a pristine wilderness. This is the largest island in Canada, and few other places on Earth offer up such a unique vacation experience. It's the obvious choice for anyone setting off to explore the rest of Nunavut, given that the territory's capital, Iqaluit, is located here.

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Iqaluit -

Once known as Frobisher Bay, Iqaluit has the lowest population of any capital city in Canada. But that's not to say it is found wanting on visitor facilities. There are some hotels and a camping site waiting to greet you where the Inuit welcome is warm and friendly.

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Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum -

Iqaluit boasts two cultural institutions certainly worth investigation. The Unikkaarvik Visitor Centre is where to gather information about the community and Nunavut in general. The excellent Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum, meanwhile, includes exhibits that exemplify Inuit art and culture including elaborate figurative art typically of birds, bears, seals, and the human form.

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Iqaluit after dark -

Despite being located well south of the Arctic Circle, Iqaluit is cold. Even in summer, the chill is perceptible. Mid-winter sees the city enveloped in near perpetual darkness, but often illuminated by spectacular displays of the aurora borealis, or northern lights.

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Auyuittuq National Park -

Top of Baffin's to-do list is exploring Auyuittuq National Park. Located on the island's Cumberland Peninsula, this is one of the most remote national parks in the world. Its Inuktitut name translates literally as "the land where it never thaws," though Nunavut's brief summers are warm enough to defrost the low valleys that accommodate the stunning Akshayuk Pass.

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Mount Thor -

The Akshayuk Pass forges its way through a spectacular valley hemmed on either side by colossal mountain peaks. One of these is Mount Thor, which has an elevation of 1,675 m (5,495 ft). This tooth-like granite peak features Earth's greatest vertical drop of 1,250 m (4,100 ft), a natural wonder that draws climbing enthusiasts from around the world.

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Mount Asgard -

Also looming over the pass is Mount Asgard. The 2,015-m (6,611-ft) twin cylindrical rock towers are named after Asgard, the realm of the gods in Norse mythology.

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Summit Lake -

The highest point on the Akshayuk Pass is Summit Lake. The pass follows the route of an ancient riverbed eroded over thousands of years. The lake was formed by glacial melt water.

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Winter challenge -

Hiking the Akshayuk Pass in winter is a challenge. Frozen under snow, the zig-zag skyline of craggy granite peaks and glittering glaciers lures only the fittest and most experienced backcountry skiers.

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Frozen landscape -

Traversing this natural corridor through towering rock is an adventure in the extreme, the frozen landscape wrapped in ice and silence.

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Following Weasel River -

There are no preset trails in Auyuittuq National Park. Instead, hikers follow well-trodden routes, one of which runs parallel to Weasel River. In winter, the river is frozen solid to the point where boulders are suspended in the ice.

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Wildlife in the park -

Lack of vegetation means that wildlife in Auyuittuq National Park is very scarce. Species that do call this barren habitat home include the North American brown lemming (pictured), the red fox, and the gray wolf. Polar bears are ubiquitous.

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Gyrfalcon -

The park's birdlife numbers several raptors, including the gyrfalcon (the largest of the falcon species), snowy owl, peregrine falcon, and rough-legged buzzard. Canada geese flock here in vast numbers during summer.

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Ellesmere Island -

Canada's northernmost island, Ellesmere also claims the country's most northerly point of land, at Cape Colombia. From here, the distance to the North Pole is a mere 769 km (478 mi). It was from here in 1909 that American explorer Robert Peary set out to reach the geographic North Pole, which he claimed he did in April of that year. However, another intrepid American adventurer, Frederick Cook, also claimed the prize, declaring that he had reached the pole in April 1908—a full year before Peary. The debate as to who actually stood on top of the world first has raged for years.

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Adventure destination -

Ellesmere Island is a land of deep fjords, precipitous mountains, and gleaming ice sheets. This isolated, glaciated destination attracts only the hardiest of backpackers and adventure seekers.

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Land of extremes -

Ellesmere captivates in the extreme. The island is home to Barbeau Peak, at 2,616 m (8,583 ft) the highest mountain in Nunavut. It's also where you'll find Lake Hazen, Canada's northernmost lake and the largest by volume north of the Arctic Circle.

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In the company of bears -

The population of Ellesmere Island is about 200. These hardy inhabitants live in three settlements: Grise Fiord, Eureka, and Canadian Forces Station Alert—the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world. Their only neighbors are polar bears.

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Quttinirpaaq National Park -

Much of Ellesmere is protected as Quttinirpaaq National Park. Located on the northeastern corner of the island, this is one of the world's remotest national parks. Those who make the effort to reach this distant destination are rewarded with a landscape of extensive glaciers, formidable ice caps, and desert-like conditions (rainfall is practically non-existent). Wildlife that roam this seemingly inhospitable environment include muskoxen and Peary caribou, while the skies accommodate about 30 different bird species.

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Coastal wildlife -

In the waters off the park's coastline dwell narwhals (the unicorns of the sea), several species of seal, and polar bears.

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Look out for the inuksuk -

Throughout your travels in Nunavut, you'll no doubt stumble across inuksuit. These are man-made stone landmarks or cairns built for use by the Inuit and other peoples of the Arctic region of North America. Used for navigation, as a point of reference, or a marker for travel routes, the inuksuk has its roots in ancient Inuit culture. The best place to admire these unusual landmarks is Inuksuk Point on Baffin Island, where a group of more than 100 inuksuit has been declared a Historic National Site of Canada.

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Sirmilik National Park -

Enchanting Sirmilik National Park is known in Inuktitut as the "place of glaciers," and the description is apt. Much of uninhabited Sirmilik is bordered by water, the ice floes providing a glass-like platform for adventurers to admire glistening ice fields and snow-capped mountains.

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Sirmilik wildlife - Scan the horizon carefully and you might catch a glimpse of the wily Arctic fox. It shares Sirmilik's coastal lowlands with Arctic hares, Arctic wolves, and Peary caribou.

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Bylot Island -

Sirmilik's boundaries encompass Bylot Island. Anchored off the northern tip of Baffin Island, Bylot incorporates areas classified as Canadian Important Bird Areas. Among the 70 or so species of birds recorded here, around 300,000 thick-billed murre (pictured) and 80,000 black-legged kittiwake congregate along the island's rocky shores. The greater snow goose also has a summer home here.

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Bowhead whale -

A treat for anyone scanning Nunavut waters is to witness the tail-slapping antics of the bowhead whale. This is the only baleen whale endemic to the Arctic and subarctic waters, and they're named after their characteristic massive triangular skull, which they use to break through Arctic ice.

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Naujaat -

Naujaat, once known as Repulse Bay, is a Inuit hamlet tucked away on the shores of Hudson Bay. Travelers wishing to investigate this out-of-the-way community have to fly in by plane for the privilege, but will be greeted warmly by the locals, many of whom serve as tour guides eager to impart a better understanding of Inuit culture and heritage.

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Belcher Islands -

The Belcher Islands are Nunavut's southernmost community. In fact, geographically they are much closer to the shores of Ontario and Quebec. From the air, this archipelago of about 1,500 islands moored in Hudson Bay resemble a Chinese character. Reached by plane or boat, the islands are part of the oldest rock formations on the planet. Only one of these islands is inhabited, where the Inuit hamlet of Sanikiluaq is located.

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Monarch of the islands -

Few people are available to welcome you to Belcher. But wildlife abounds. The monarch of the islands is the mighty walrus.

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Pond Inlet -

Another cultural diversion can be enjoyed at Pond Inlet, on the Baffin Island coast. Also known as Mittimatalik, this small community is proud of its Nattinnak Centre, a museum and visitor center that displays a collection of artifacts and information panels all about the history, geography, and wildlife of the region.

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Devon Island -

Just for your information, because it's out of bounds to the public, Devon Island is the site of the Haughton Impact Crater, one of the world's northernmost impact craters. The devastation left by the huge rock that crashed into this part of the world 23 million years ago turned the landscape into that resembling the surface of Mars. During the summer months, the island is occupied by researchers from FMARS (Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station).

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Beechey Island gravesite -

If you make it to Beechey Island, a peninsula off Devon Island, visit the remote gravesites of four hapless explorers: three members of an ill-fated expedition to the Northwest Passage, and one of the men who went looking for them. The island itself is the site of several very significant events in the history of Arctic exploration, including the shipwrecks of the polar vessels HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.  

Sources: (Guinness World Records) (Smithsonian Magazine) (CBC) (The Planetary Society)

See also: What's to see within the Arctic Circle?

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