Auyuittuq National Park

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Auyuittuq National Park
Characteristic mountain formations and glaciers
Characteristic mountain formations and glaciers
Auyuittuq National Park (Canada)
Paris plan pointer b jms.svg
Coordinates: 67 ° 53 ′ 0 ″  N , 65 ° 1 ′ 0 ″  W.
Location: Nunavut , Canada
Next city: Pangnirtung and Qikiqtarjuaq
Surface: 20,500 km²
Founding: 1976
Visitors: 200 (2016/2017)
Address: Auyuittuq National Park
P.O. Box 353
Pangnirtung, Nunavut
Tel. (867) 473-2500
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The Auyuittuq National Park ( English Auyuittuq National Park of Canada , French Parc national du Canada Auyuittuq ) is located on the Cumberland Peninsula in the southeast part of Baffin Island and, with around 20,500 square kilometers, is the fifth largest of the more than 40 national parks in Canada . The legal requirements for the gradual development of the national park were created in 1972 and the park opened in 1976; the final status as a national park of the territory of Nunavut ( Canada ) was established in the Canadian National Park Ordinance of February 19, 2001. The park is an IUCN Category II ( National Park ) protected area .

geology

North Pangnirtung Fjord and the mouth of the Owl River

Geologically, the Auyuittuq National Park is shaped by evidence of a section of the earth's history dating back 3 billion years - from a rugged primary rock landscape made up of the Precambrian Canadian shield , sometimes more than 2,000 meters vertically rising, often with characteristic tabular peaks, granite rock walls and wide trough valleys. This primary rock was once covered by oceanic rock sediment, but the Laurentide Ice Sheet carried away the sediments and eroded the granite rocks when it retreated around 10,000 years ago.

Three lakes in the national park - Crater Lake , Summit Lake and Windy Lake - were only created around 100 years ago when natural dams formed when glaciers retreated from gravel and rubble mountains, which dammed the melt water.

geography

The Auyuittuq National Park extends in its southern part between the two Inuit settlements Pangnirtung (Panniqtuuq) and Qikiqtarjuaq from the Arctic Circle about 125 kilometers to the northeast. To the north it extends from the Arctic Circle (66 ° 33 '30' 'n. Br.) Around 220 kilometers to Home Bay . Its area is around 20,500 square kilometers and is about a quarter of the difficult to access Penny ice cap covered ( "Penny Ice Cap"). This glacier area, in places 2,100 meters high, has an ice thickness of up to 300 meters and is a relic of the Laurentide ice sheet , i.e. ice age glaciation . Since the ice cap has given the country its character in all seasons for thousands of years, the Inuit called it "Auyuittuq", "land that never melts".

Akshayuk pass

Auyuittuq National Park: Penny Ice Cap
Double peaks of Mount Asgard, including the Parade Glacier

In the southeastern part of the national park, a glacial trough-shaped valley runs across the Cumberland Peninsula, the Akshayuk Pass (formerly "Pangnirtung Pass"), above which numerous, scree-strewn glacier tongues hang steeply downhill. The path used to traverse the park and stretching almost 100 kilometers in the southeast of the Penny Ice Cap below the glacier zone connects the Davis Strait with the Cumberland Sound .

On the almost 500 meters above sea level. d. At the top of the Akshayuk pass (66 ° 38 ′ N; 65 ° 10 ′ W), about nine kilometers long and 1.5 kilometers wide, Summit Lake is a catchment basin for glacier water with bright blue-green ice in summer, often still partly floating covered surface (its color is caused by refraction of light in the meltwater loaded with sediment). The glacial waters of the lake flow in the northeast over the Owl River, in the southwest over the Weasel River into the Arctic Ocean .

To the north of Summit Lake, the characteristic twin-cylinder tower silhouette of Mount Asgard rises 2,015 meters from the surrounding glaciers.

At its northeast end, Summit Lake merges directly into Glacier Lake, which is almost five kilometers long and almost two kilometers wide. Its glacier water feeds the Owl River , which flows northwards from here and after about 45 kilometers at the north entrance to the Akshayuk Pass with a delta over two kilometers wide pours into the North Pangnirtung Fjord . The increased occurrence of snowy owls in years rich in lemmings gave the river its name; Tourers visit this side of the pass less often than its south side, which is why the valley is characterized by even greater solitude.

The Weasel River flows from the southwest of Summit Lake ; it flows through a magnificent mountain landscape into the Pangnirtung Fjord , about 35 kilometers away , a branch of the Cumberland Sound. Down the river there are deeply cut side valleys with glaciers and raised terminal moraines. Above it rise variously colored rock faces, snow-covered mountain ridges and mountain peaks pointing perpendicular to the sky, almost all named after old Germanic gods. On the south side of the Weasel River, after about nine kilometers, the 1,675 meter high Mount Thor rises almost vertically over the river valley; it is one of the highest cliffs in the world (around 1,000 meters cliff height). Six kilometers further downriver is the small Windy Lake on the north side, and after another three kilometers the Qijuttaaqanngittuq valley with its two lakes and the Schwartzenbach waterfalls , which plunge 660 meters into the depths, are visible. On the other side of the river, Bear's Paw Glacier (“Bear's Paw Glacier”) is clutching the Tirokwa peak. Another three kilometers downstream the circular, blue-green Crater Lake pours into the Weasel River. After an additional twelve kilometers, the trough-shaped valley floor widens, and the Weasel River reaches the Pangnirtung Fiord, which has a tidal range of ten meters there. Here is the southern access to the Akshajuk Pass with the 1,490 meter high Mount Overlord as an imposing landmark.

Climatic conditions

Bear's Paw Glacier at Tirokwa Peak
South access to Auyuittuq National Park in the confluence of the Weasel River in the Pangirtung Fjord under Mount Overlord

The Cumberland Peninsula has a polar maritime climate, which means long, cold winters and short, cool summers. The warmest month is July with average maximum temperatures of 10 ° C. January, the coldest month, has average maximum temperatures of around −23 ° C. Precipitation is very low, although late summer is cloudy. Weather changes occur suddenly and without warning. A relatively strong breeze usually blows through the trough-shaped valley of the Akshayuk Pass.

history

The park's history dates back to the pre-Dorset civilization around 4,000 years ago. Ancestors of today's Inuit , people of the Thule culture , also came to the region around 1200 and left stone walls as relics of their dwellings. There is also evidence that between the 13th and 15th centuries these people traded with Vikings who had crossed from Greenland to the coasts of Baffin Island .

In 1585 John Davis explored Baffin Island and for the first time mapped the Cumberland Peninsula. Although the Inuit had their first contacts with European whalers and fur traders as early as the 17th century, dramatic changes did not take place until the 19th century, when the English and Scots brought the Inuit into contact with alcohol and, above all, disease in the course of commercial whaling which they had no immune system. In 1858 , for example, the researcher William Penny , after whom the ice cap is named, noted that the Inuit population of the South Baffin region had shrunk from around 1,000 to 350 within a decade.

In 1977, was shot in the vicinity of Mount Asgard on the slopes of the ice cap of the stunt in which a double for Roger Moore as James Bond 007 in " The Spy Who Loved Me " ( "The Spy Who Loved Me") on skis jumps over a hilltop on a parachute.

flora

White-flowered dwarf fireweed

Over time, soil crumbs have formed on terminal moraines , lateral moraines , eskers and other glacier bottoms, and so in protected, ice-free zones, not only lichens and mosses can be found, but also pillows of stemless celibate , some saxifrages , arctic poppies and silverwort . Tufts of grass and low shrubs such as dwarf birch , willow and heather find their livelihood in sand corners blown by the wind . In the bays of the fjords with the usual tundra floors and along the coastline of the Davis Strait , almost the entire Arctic flora and sometimes even one or the other rare plant species such as a white-flowering subspecies of the dwarf willowherb thrive . A total of 112 higher flowering plant species, 129 moss species and 97 different lichens have been cataloged in the Auyuittuq National Park so far.

fauna

Nedlukseak Fjord: Arctic char catch

The sparse vegetation in the interior of the park limits the number of terrestrial mammal species in the Auyuittuq National Park and also limits their population density. Lemmings, arctic hares , arctic hares , ermines , weasels , ground squirrels ( ground squirrels ), red foxes , arctic foxes , Barrenland caribou (very rare) can be found here.

Between June and August, a total of 28 regularly occurring bird species have been observed here, including birds of prey such as gyrfalcons and peregrine falcons , waterfowl such as ice gulls , eider ducks and Canada geese , as well as ptarmigan , snowy owl , spur chambers , snow bunting and water pipit .

The coastal waters of the national park are rich in marine mammals . Here are bearded seals , ringed seals , harp seals and walrus , bowhead whales , narwhals and belugas and last but not least - - especially in late summer polar bears before. The main fish found in the fjords of the Davis Strait are arctic char .

tourism

For the Akshajuk Pass, the best time to go on skis or snowmobiles is late spring, when the maximum cold has passed. Hiking is recommended from mid-July to the end of August. It should be noted that the access to the north side from Qikiqtarjuaq freezes over earlier and breaks up later than the access to the south side from Pangnirtung. Parks Canada has set up shelters at daily intervals.

literature

Web links

Commons : Auyuittuq National Park  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ World Database on Protected Areas - Auyuittuq National Park (English)