DEPARTMENT FOR GEOGRAPHY
PANGAEA Young Explorers Expedition
Baffin Island / Canada Arctic
Big Walls and Permafrost
Expedition to a changing wilderness
Textbook
Dr. Roswitha Stolz
Department of Geography, University of Munich (LMU)
Baffin and Bylot Island, the Northwest Passage and the
Territory of Nunavut
(http://www. geology.com/canada/nunavut.shtml)
The PANGAEA Expedition will take place within the Canadian territory of “Nunavut”, which
mean in the Inuit language Inuktitut “our land” (www.polarnet.ca). It covers 1,932,255 km2 of
land and 160,935 km2 of water in Northern Canada. The territory includes part of the
mainland, most of the Arctic Archipelago. It is the largest (one fifth of Canada) and the
newest territory in Canada. In 1999 it was officially separated from the Northwest Territory
via the Nunavut Act (www.wikipwdia.org).
The
population
of
Nunavut
in
2006
(census)
was
only
29,474.
24,640 identifying themselves as Inuit (84%), 100 as first nation (0.34%), 130 Metis and 5410
as non-aboriginal (15%) (www.polarnet.ca).
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The Inuit and their language
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of
Canada, Greenland, Siberia and the United States. Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut
language. An Inuk is an Inuit person. The Constitution Act of 1982 recognised the Inuit as a
distinctive group of Canadian aboriginals, who are neither First Nations (Indians) nor Métis
(trace their descent to mixed European and First Nations parentage). Since about 4000
years the area is populated by Paleo-Eskimo groups such as the so-called Dorset tribes and
since about 1000 A.D by the Inuit and their ancestors (Thule culture).
The Inuit language is grouped under Eskimo-Aleut languages.(www.en.wikipedia.org). The
language spoken in Nunavut, besides of English, is Inuktitut. ᑎᑎᕋᐅᓯᖅ ᓄᑖᖅ, titirausiq
nutaaq. The Inuktitut syllabary is a writing system used by the Inuit in Nunavut
Inuit words for snow:
The northern indigenous cultures have an old in-depth knowledge about sea ice and snow.
The Inuit languages have about 50 - 75 words for snow and snow features (Webster & Zibell,
1970). In fact this is not much more than other i.e. European languages do have.
A popular belief exists that the Inuit have an unusually large number of words for snow and
white (150 – 200). This is not accurate, and results from a misunderstanding of the nature of
polysynthetic languages. In fact, The Inuit have only a few base roots for snow: 'qanniq-'
('qanik-' in some dialects), which is used most often like the verb to snow, and 'aput', which
means snow as a substance. Parts of speech work very differently in the Inuit language than
in English, so these definitions are somewhat misleading.
The Inuit language can form very long words by adding more and more descriptive affixes to
words. (This is i.e. also done in German: To describe a new object, substantives are
combined). Those affixes may modify the syntactic and semantic properties of the base
word, or may add qualifiers to it in much the same way that English uses adjectives or
prepositional phrases to qualify nouns (e.g. "falling snow", "blowing snow", "snow on the
ground", "snow drift", etc.) (Pullum, 2004: Fortescue et al, 1994)
The "fact" that there are many Inuit words for snow has been put forward so often it is
somewhat of a journalistic cliché.
Examples of Inupiaq word for snow features (after Webster & Zibell, 1970)
Apun
Snow cover
Aluktinniq
Windswept snow-free area on sea ice
Katikronuk
Migrating dunes, still soft
Kiyokluk
Sastrugi
Isrriqutit
Diamond dust or ice crystals in the air
Nutagak
Fresh powder snow
Pukak
Basal snow that has metamorphosed into depth hoar
Silliq
Hard, icy snow
Silliqruk
Old icy snow, extra hard
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Words in European languages derived from Inuit languages:
Kajak: covered seal-skin boats called qajaq (Inuktitut syllabics: ᖃᔭᖅ)
Anorak: The word 'anorak' comes from the Kalaallisut word anoraq. It did not appear in
English until 1924
Parka: The word 'parka' is derived from the Nenets language. In the Aleutian Islands the
word simply means "animal skin”
Husky: Husky is a general term for several breeds of dogs used as sled dogs. The word
"husky" is a corruption of the derogative term "Eskie"
The political situation
The Nunavut Land Claim Agreement:
Within this Agreement, part of the Northwest territories were declared as Inuit land. The
Nunavut Land Claim Agreement was the first step to form the new territory and a selfgovernment for the Nunavut Inuit
Some features of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement significant influence on the economy
and the environmental management of the area:
• Approximately 350,000 km² of land, of which about 35,000 km² include mineral rights, are
now Inuit owned with only limited rights to the Canadian government
• Equal representation of Inuit with government on a new set of wildlife management,
resource management and environmental boards,
• The right to harvest wildlife on lands and waters throughout the Nunavut settlement area,
• Capital transfer payments of $1.148 billion, payable to the Inuit over 14 years and a $13
million Training Trust Fund
• A share of federal government royalties for Nunavut Inuit from oil, gas and mineral
development on Crown lands
• The creation of three federally funded national parks
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Some geographical facts
Geology:
The geology of Nunavut records almost three-billion years of Earth history. Some of the
world’s oldest rocks are found in this area. The southern part of the territory - the mainland
and Baffin Island - is part of the Canadian Shield, consisting of rocks typically more than a
billion years old. This rock formation extends to parts of Ellesmere Island. Younger,
sedimentary rocks in largely horizontal layers cover the northern part of the Shield on
Nunavut's western islands and along the Parry Channel, as well as smaller isolated areas
further south
Due to metamorphism these old rocks are rich in minerals, especially copper, zinc, gold and
lead. During the Caledonian orogeny (490-390 Mio.y ago) the Innuitian orogenic belt
developed which extends from Ellesmere Island to Melville Island. The basement of this
province consists of highly deformed sedimentary, metamorphic and volcanic rocks. Lead
and zinc have been found on Little Cornwallis Island and Baffin Island, while magnetite has
been discovered on Axel Heiberg Island. (http://nrcan.gc.ca)
Landforms
The highest mountains in Nunavut are found along the eastern part of the territory, where the
land has risen in relatively recent geological time. A highland with many peaks reaching
1,500 m to 2,000 m a.s.l. extends from south of Cape Dyer on Baffin Island to Ellesmere
Island. Northern Ellesmere is even higher and contains Nunavut's highest mountain: Mount
Barbeau (2,616 m). From the eastern Baffin highland, the Shield slopes gradually
southwestwards to Foxe Basin and re-emerges on the west side of Hudson Bay, rising
towards the west. The Boothia Peninsula, at the northern extreme of the mainland, reaches
altitudes of about 600 m and this higher ground extends southward, although most of the
mainland is less than 300 m above sea level. Farther north, along Barrow Strait, typical
altitudes are between 400 to 500 m above sea level, but the islands to the west of the
Boothia Peninsula (such as Prince of Wales Island and the eastern part of Victoria Island)
are mostly less than 150 m above sea level.
Most of Nunavut's landforms are shaped by ice sheets and glaciers. During the last
glaciations time, the Laurentide Ice Sheet extended north from its centre near Hudson Bay to
the north side of Parry Channel, while the highlands of Ellesmere, Axel Heiberg and Devon
islands supported separate ice centres with ice flowing in all directions, coalescing in many
places. Except for Bathurst Island and Cornwallis Island, the low northwestern islands were
not ice covered during the Wisconsin glaciation, some 18,000 years ago. However, previous
ice sheets (from older glaciations, like Illinoian) reached the Arctic Ocean coast. The
spectacular valley and fiord landscape of parts of the archipelago was shaped during the
glacial periods.
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The Laurentide Ice sheet
During the Last Glacial Maximum (between 65000 and 20000 years b.p.), the largest North
American ice sheet, the Laurentide sheet, covered an area stretching over 16 million km2
(32 times the surface area of Spain), and had a volume of around 30 million km3, much
larger than the ice sheet that currently covers Antarctica. As a result, the North American ice
encompassed (in volume at least) one third of all the land-based continental ice on the
planet. Moving south along the east coast of North America, the Laurentide ice sheet
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eventually arrived at a latitude of 36ºN, the modern-day location of New York (in Europe, this
would have been equivalent to the Fennoscandian ice sheet reaching the Mediterranean
coast).
Thanks to the moisture provided by the Atlantic, more ice accumulated on the eastern side of
the Laurentide ice sheet than on the western side. The highest point of the dome was located
above what is today Hudson Bay and at this point, the ice measured between 3,000 and
4,000 m in thickness
Climate conditions:
Definition of the Arctic climate:
The arctic climate is defined as “the average temperature for the warmest month < 10°C”.
Many books and reports differentiate between low and high arctic conditions, but this is
largely arbitrary. A more clear differentiation is between the dry polar deserts and the wetter
tundra areas. The Canadian archipelago is part of the polar desert.
Average summer temperature: +4°C
Plant growing period: 8-10 weeks
Precipitation: < 150 mm/y
The area of the polar desert
red = polar desert
purple = southern boundary of the tundra
green line = arctic circle
(source: Sale, R. 2008, p.20)
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Polar day and night:
1.
Midnight sun (no sunset):
At 66.5°N: 21 June
at 70°N: 23st May – 24th July
at 75°N: 1st May - 13th August
2. Polar night:
Types of polar night
Since there are various kinds of twilight, there are also various kinds of polar night. This is
because the polar night is defined as the period during which no twilight occurs. These
latitude definitions are based on relatively clear skies, so the sky will be darker if there are
thick clouds about.
civil polar night:
= the period during which there is only a faint glow of light visible at midday. Limited to
latitudes above 72° 33'.
nautical polar night:
= no trace of light can be seen anywhere but the sky is not completely dark at midday.
Limited to latitudes above 78° 33'
astronomical polar night:
= the period of continuous night where no astronomical twilight occurs. Limited to latitudes
above 84° 33'
Sunrise and sunset at Baffin Island (local time):
Clyde River (70°N):
16th August: 3:40 am / 9:51 pm
20th August: 4 am / 9:21pm
Pond Inlet (73°N):
22. August: 3:31 am / 9:56 pm
3. September: 4:38 am / 8:44 pm
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