MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Fall Winter 2018

58 MLCM FALL/WINTER 2018 in Churchill, Manitoba. He tells us these roaming bears often work the edges of the fjords, searching for hollows in the fractured ice for easy-pickings seal pups that have been hidden away while parents fish. As the ice disappears, so do the bears’ hunting areas and food sources. Though the fella who made tracks through our former camp passed by us peacefully, I’m still glad we’re sleeping inside a perimeter fence, armed with 12-gauge blanks designed to alert us and hopefully scare away any curious beasts that may wander too close. Having a bit more seal-like fat on their bodies than I do, I’m reassured that a nanook would select Dave or John as a meal over me anyways. I c e T o u r i s t s The shattered wall of the Coronation Glacier’s toe rises 200 feet straight up from the frozen sea. It’s one of the crux points of our journey — in order to get on top and continue to the Penny Ice Cap, we need to find a route up and around this behemoth with our loaded pulks (gear sleds we tow behind us). A lumpy band of moraine along the north edge looks like our best bet. Our first attempt involves removing our skis and trying to walk up while hauling our sleds, but after about 30 metres of repeatedly punching crotch- deep through snow-hidden holes between rock debris, we settle on lightening the loads, putting our skis back on, and shuttling back and forth. A couple hours later we’re atop the toe. The glacier is framed by dark walls, swooping in a flowing, alabaster line to its junction with the Penny Ice Cap somewhere out of sight. We have to be careful in these first kilometres — a few years ago, an ill- prepared skier (no rope) fell into one of the crevasses along this same edge. Injured and cold, he had to wait a couple of days in the chasm before being extracted by local Inuit fetched by his partner. I imagine the locals who helped that day shaking their heads, wondering what these “tourists” were doing way up here. Our mission here is a 230-kilometre town-to- town, sea-to-sea crossing of Baffin Island via the Coronation Glacier, Penny Ice Cap, and Akshayuk Pass. The danger of falling into a crevasse is one thing, but from an Inuit perspective the fact that no game exists in this windswept zone of rock and ice makes it a very impractical place to be. A s w e f l a t t e n o u t o n t o t h e T u r n e r , w e ’ r e s t u n n e d b y v i e w s o f t h e b a c k s i d e o f M o u n t A s g a r d . T h e t w i n , f l a t - t o p p e d s u m m i t i s a p t l y n a m e d a f t e r t h e h o m e o f t h e g o d s i n N o r s e m y t h o l o g y . 8 pages THIS PAGE Dave Garrow and John McClelland approachThor Peak.At 1,250 metres (4,101 feet) it's the biggest vertical rock face on earth.Auyuittuq National Park, NU. PAGE 60-61: Summit Lake Shelter and a view over the Norse mountains of Akshayuk Pass.Auyuittuq National Park, NU.