Qikiqtarjjuaq (Broughton Island)

Ikaluktutiak is a hamlet in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut. It on the south east corner of Victoria Island. The terrain is flat and barren with thousands of ponds and lakes. Easy travelling in the winter over the snow and ice covered countryside.

This was my home base for several years. My next home was almost 3ooo km east but still in Nunavut. This gives you some sense of the magnitude of the northern territory. Two examples are that Victoria Island is larger than Newfoundland and Baffin Island is almost 2000 Km long. One fifth of Canada's land mass makes up Nunavut and this land is inhabited by a little over than 25,ooo people of which over 80% are Inuit.

Qikiqtarjjuaq (Broughton Island) is in the Baffin Island region. The terrain here is rugged , mountainous and Ice covered for the most part. Because it is situated along the east coast off the south east portion of Baffin Island it faces miles of ocean known as Davis Strait. Looking over the ocean you would see Greenland some hundreds of miles due east.

There is a grandeur about this place with mountains throughout this Island rising thousands of feet and covered year long by ice - hundreds of feet thick. Fiords inundate the coastline creeping inland for miles and show ancient rock faces rising straight up, carved by successive ice scrapings just as a artist would sculpt a carving. Birds by the millions make this rock wall their home in summer.

The sea abounds with seal , walrus and whales of many kinds. The knarl whale with its great long spear pointing from its snout is one of the wonders of the area. Shrimp , clams and shellfish abound and provide the food for the diet of the walrus who consume several hundreds of pounds daily.

Caribou and musk oxen survive on the barren landscape by finding food in the low lying areas but this is the home of the mighty polar bear. Magnificent animals standing up to 11 feet tall standing on their hind legs and as agile and nimble an animal you can find while in the water or scampering over ice packs seeking their favourite food , seal.

The polar bear is used by animal rights groups and global warming groups as their poster babies. They are beautiful but I wonder if they would be used if they looked like a wart hog. You don't hear much about seals up here as this is the main food of the Inuit. I never really got used to the taste of seal although it was a food offered when you visited a home or on the land. The seal hunt is another story where people use the baby seals as a reason to interfere with the local peoples way of life in Newfoundland and the area of the St. Lawrence Gulf.

The climate along the Baffin Island coastline is harsh but not as severe as inland. Personally my time in the Baffin was not as pleasurable as the far north in the Kitikmeot. Probably the main reason was the land formations while beautiful made travel in many regions impossible.

There are many area wonders to be discovered on Baffin Island and only a few take advantage of the new and growing tourist industry. The little Hamlet that was my home there was shared with about 500 Inuit and a dozen white folks. This was one of the most culturally pure places in Nunavut and the customs and traditions were essentially intact.

These pictures are typical of the Baffin Region.