By David Webb
Late last night, the embers in our woodstove finally burned to ash. I’m awake in a yurt pitched alongside the frozen Koroc River and the bitter morning temperature leaves little doubt we’re deep into Nunavik—Arctic Quebec.
We’d crossed the borders of Parc national Kuururjuaq yesterday morning, after setting out via snowmobile from the Inuit community of Kangiqsualujjuaq. Following a 12-kilometre ski along the Koroc, we arrived at this tent-camp just as the short March day was coming to a close. The tent was hot and steamy when we arrived; the woodstove crimson as our cultural host and Inuit Elder Susie Morgan—a spry septuagenarian—sautéed ptarmigan wings from a fresh kill.
Now, my breath forms ice crystals on my sleeping bag, the stove is stone-grey and my drinking water has solidified. It’s my first time in this region of Canada and waking up in -27 degrees Celsius is as good an introduction as any.
Occupying the northern-third of the province of Quebec, Nunavik is mostly raw Earth. It encompasses nearly half-a-million square kilometres of tundra, taiga, glacial lakes, freestone rivers and the occasional meteorite crater. It’s home to 14 communities—the largest of which is Kuujjuaq (population: 2,375), the usual port of entrance to Nunavik. The entire region is air- or boat-access only, it’s home to three impressive parks and it’s definitely not to be conflated with Nunavut, the nearby Canadian territory with which it shares cultural and geographic similarities
Located in Nunavik’s northeast, Parc national Kuururjuaq was the second national park to be officially designated in the region, in 2009. It’s also the second-largest of the three. Kuururjuaq stretches east from the shores of Ungava Bay and forms a 4,461-square-kilometre protective bubble around the Koroc River, which flows along the treeline from its headwaters in Labrador’s Torngat Mountains. Founded to not only stave off industrial development, but also to preserve the Inuit way of life within, the only regular signs of human intrusion in Kuururjuaq are a small basecamp midway along the Koroc, a tentsite or two and a smattering of survival caches.
Recently, Nunavik Parks and Nunavik Tourism have sought to increase visitorship to these parks, developing adventure-travel itineraries that merge impressive natural wonders with rich cultural experiences. I’m here during the final days of winter to help develop one of these itineraries—along with a Quebec-based outfitter, a couple of parks staffers and, most importantly, five local guides. These young Inuit were raised on the land; their insight and experience is invaluable. Plus, they’re authorized to carry firearms into the park—handy if a wayward polar bear decides we look appealing.
A night spent sleeping on spruce boughs and waking to an impossibly cold morning is an effective initiation to this Arctic wilderness. I’m grateful that our destination today is Korluktok Camp; a rustic cabin with solar/generator electricity, bunk beds and glorious oil stoves. Earlier this morning, two of our guides had scouted the route forward. Despite the minus-double-digit temperatures, the Koroc River is showing its first signs of spring breakup. We’ll need to scoot over the ice quickly if we hope to reach the cabin at all. Once again, our day starts on snowmobiles.
Guide Ned Annanack pilots my sled as we careen over the ice en route to Korluktok. He’s the jokester of the group, spending much of our short jaunt to camp attempting to convince me we’re about to break through the ice. Like he did, last year at this time, nearly perishing in the process. Hilarious.
Comfy Korluktok is a welcome sight, but relaxation is not on today’s schedule. We have only five days to scout an itinerary meant to take 10; hence the need for point-to-point runs via snow-machine.
A quick lunch of fresh-caught Arctic char and fried bannock injects the calories we need for the afternoon’s alpine snowshoe. We trod from camp, across the river and toward the foothills on its southern edge. The snow is exhaustingly deep within the riverside woodland of black spruce—we sink up to our knees as we break trail upslope. To the northeast, the Torngat Mountains—“Land of Spirits”—curve with the horizon. At this moment, within the entire park there may be, perhaps, one other party. I feel alone in the best possible way. I focus only on the tasks at hand: moving through the snow, staying warm and breathing deep. Weather changes by the minute. I strip off a layer in the protected forest, then hunker down when the wind blasts us on the exposed mountainside. We spend hours route-finding this way, eventually rediscovering the river, our camp and the warmth of Korluktok.
The bluest skies of the week greet us the following morning; ideal for pushing further northeast into the park to a region dubbed “Rivers That Look Like Tears.” Here, Kuururjuaq leaves all trees behind and morphs into classic Arctic landscape—a moonscape of open tundra and rolling mounds of Precambrian shield caked in wind-blasted snow. The Koroc River is framed by rocky prominences jutting up 500 metres or more. One, which Susie calls, “Caribou’s Big Hill,” will be our challenge for the day.
At the start of the climb, the temperature is about -20; however, each step brings more exposure. My sweat freezes. My beard is ice. I climb over three false-summits before reaching the ridge-walk, which impresses with an infinite Arctic view before curving downslope on the west side of the mountain. The shelter of a van-sized boulder provides enough respite to remove my snowshoes for the last push. The peak is almost blasted clean and strewn with polygon rubble; what snow remains is compact enough to walk over.
Atop Caribou’s Big Hill, gusts hit 60 km/h and bite like a hornet’s sting. But I’m too distracted to care. From this high vantage, the park’s 446,000 hectares seems a conservative estimate. The Koroc River carves a prodigious swath across my sightline. The foothills of the Torngats repeat, mountains beyond mountains, until they vanish from sight. Nunavik means “Great Land.” It’s an understatement.
Back at camp, Susie entertains us with her tales, translated from Inuktitut by our guides. She and her sister, who is also in her seventies, still regularly head out on multi-day hunting or fishing trips. In her younger days, she once solo-trekked for three weeks through more than 350 kilometres of mountainous terrain between Nain, Labrador, and Kangiqsualujjuaq. Her stories illuminate the sociological transitions Inuit communities today face. Elders like Susie had been born in tents to nomadic tribes; their grandchildren have iPhones. Towns such as Kangiqsualujjuaq are connected to the world via satellite Internet; bounties from bear, seal and caribou subsistence hunts are still shared amongst residents via communal freezer. The challenge is to keep tradition strong while embracing change.
Later, we gather outside the cabin to watch the Northern Lights ripple in waves above the Torngat Mountains. It’s midway through the expedition and we are already declaring a resounding success. Kuururjuaq holds a lifetime of adventures within. The struggle is whittling these experiences into manageable chunks.
Our final full day sees us skiing northeastward along the river toward a massive plateau. We slide across snow as gritty as salt with no real destination in mind—seeing just to see, going just to go. Hours later, we arrive at the plateau, which further on sinks into a valley big enough to be a park of its own. We hope for a caribou sighting but settle for one more amazing panorama.
En route back to camp, we scout for a 3,000-year-old Pre-Dorset food cache said to be hidden atop one of three hills on the Koroc’s northern bank. We don’t find it. But at least we eliminate where it isn’t.
At nightfall, we join our guides at a bonfire in the woods. Though it is at least -25 degrees, the flame is warm enough for me to open my jacket and remove my gloves. Above, the moon is a sliver and the stars are almost as bright. I listen to stories of life in Kangiqsualujjuaq—of the Inuit people’s love of this land and what the Koroc Valley provides: food, furs and mindfulness. We listen to the wood crackle, smell the burning pitch and watch sparks swirl above the treetops and vanish in a damson sky.
With the fire in embers, I wander back to the cabin alone. The new moon shines just enough light for me to distinguish trees from snow. From a clearing, I see the Northern Lights again—this time the auroras form a faint loop in the sky, like an eye in the centre of the universe. I am overwhelmed. This is Nunavik—Canada’s Great Land.
Discover more about Parc national Kuururjuaq at http://nunavikparks.ca/en/parks/kuururjuaq.