Torngat Mountains National Park Trip


"At the northern extremity of the Labrador coast, a range of high barren mountains with sharp precipices extending inland from the sea was known to the traditional Inuit as the abode of the master spirit in their mythology. Their name for the region, Torngat meaning a place of spirits, derived from the presence of Torngarsoak who was believed to control the life of sea animals and took the form of a huge polar bear." (Hawkes 1916: 124-5)

The Torngat Mountains National Park is Canada’s 42nd national park, and Canada’s newest national park.
This park was established with the consent of Inuit from Nunatsiavut (northern Labrador) and Inuit from Nunavik (northern Quebec) through their respective land claims agreements.



The North Arm of Saglek Bay, Labrador, July 26-August 2, 2009

It is unusually warm as we land on the gravel runway at the Saglek Bay radar station, t-shirt weather, unusual for the Labrador Coast. We are a group of six from Maine. Greg and Don from Chewonki, Steve and Benson from Pownal, Josh from North Yarmouth and David from Cumberland. We rendezvoused on Saturday and drove north spending the night outside Montreal. Sunday we started our day with a quick drive to the bustling Montreal Airport. At 10AM we board a First Air jet for the morning flight to Kuujjuaq, northern Quebec. We take off and watch the trees and roads thin out and disappear below us and after an hour or so we look down on the transition zone between the boreal forest and the open barrens of the Ungava Bay lowlands. Two hours later we touch down in Kuujjuaq. We load our gear into a chartered Air Inuit King Air and we are air born again for the 55-minute flight to Saglek.

The day is cloudless as we fly over the barrens just inland from Ungava Bay. We pass over Helen’s Falls and the George River and soon see snow capped peaks in the distance. The Torngats! We find our selves looking out the windows at jaw dropping scenery. Our pilot performs a fly by of the landing strip to make sure it is clear of caribou. We touch down and staff from Parks Canada meet us and help us shuttle our gear to their boat for the quick trip to their base camp two bays over.

The Parks Canada base camp has a frontier town feel with two rows of tents and several larger portable structures that serve as a mess tent, park office and visitors center. A helicopter lands nearby bringing a group of researchers back after a day in the field. Botanists, archeologists, outdoor recreation planners and Park Staff make up the temporary community. For the past two years, scientists and Park staff have set up this summer camp that is used as a base from which to gather baseline data about the land, flora, fauna and human history of the Park.

At base camp we meet with Parks Canada Staff, Gary Baike and Angus Simpson and meet John Merkuratsuk who will be our bear monitor. As non-residents we are not permitted to carry a firearm in the park and we are happy to have John join us. We receive an orientation to the park as is required of all visitors and we watch a video about safe travel in Polar Bear country. This section of the Labrador Coast has a high density of polar bears and we pay close attention to the video. Around 7 PM we load onto the Robert Bradford a 55-foot converted long liner that will take us 3 hours up the Bay to Saglek’s North Arm. We feed on Arctic Char as we head west up the fiord. We enjoy the calm waters and the changing light as the sun sinks below the steep walled slopes that define the fiord. At 11PM we reach North Arm and set two anchors in case the famed Torngat winds pick up in the night. We decide to spend the night on the boat and roll out sleeping bags on the back deck. During the night I wake up to see stars overhead and Venus reflected in the water.

We wake up Monday morning to a beautiful sunrise and get the first look at our home for the next week. It is a breathtaking, steep walled canyon. We shuttle our gear to shore and begin the process we now well of setting up camp and securing our tents with large rocks incase the weather changes and down slopping winds pick up.

We spend the next week exploring the valley at the head of North Arm. We see a polar bear but no sign of the black bears that we expect to encounter. Some days we hike the valley and others we climb up high to gain a raven’s eye view of the valley. We take quick swims in the turquoise colored waters of a pond, a short walk from our campsite. We follow the tracks of wolf and bear and watch a peregrine falcon, willow ptarmigan and a harlequin duck with chicks go about their daily routine. We marvel at the arctic plants that bloom during the brief sub-arctic summer. Mostly we soak up our surroundings.

We all travel North for different reasons. This trip has provided incredible wildlife sightings in a dramatic landscape that has a long and fascinating history of human habitation. Especially powerful for all of us has been the opportunity to travel the land in the company of our Bear Monitor, John who was born nearby at Nackvak Fiord and knows the land in ways we can never fully understand.

On Friday the Robert Bradford chugs back into the North Arm. We load up and head back to Base Camp. The weather has changed and the clouds lowered. Halfway back to Base Camp we catch sight of a polar bear on shore. We move closer and watch in awe as the 1500 lb bear moves along the rocky shoreline, its fat belly almost dragging on the ground. We pass icebergs and soon we are back in the calm waters of St John’s Harbor, the site of Base Camp. We spend a couple days immersing ourselves in the base camp community, waiting for the weather to lift so that our plane can land. Too soon our adventure ends and we fly south back to the land of trees, roads and people.

We plan to return to The Torngats next year so keep an eye on the website for trip dates.


Greg Shute
Wilderness Programs Director