Quttinirpaaq National Park

Listen for a moment. The silence here is not empty. There is wind moving over gravel, a faint tick of meltwater somewhere below the ice, perhaps the dry rustle of your own jacket. The air smells of almost nothing. Cold, clean, a little mineral. Under your boots the ground is loose stone and frost-heaved soil. The light falls at a low angle and seems to come from everywhere at once. Welcome to Quttinirpaaq, one of the most remote protected places on Earth.

The name comes from Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit. It is usually translated as top of the world. The description is close to literal. You are standing on northern Ellesmere Island, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut. Very little land on the planet lies further north than this. The North Pole is closer to you now than most Canadian cities are. Look north from the coast, and beyond the ice there is only the frozen Arctic Ocean.

The scale of this park is hard to take in. It is the second largest national park in Canada, smaller only than Wood Buffalo in the south. Yet it sees very few visitors in a typical year. There are no roads here at all. Almost everyone arrives by chartered aircraft, usually flying from the small community of Resolute far to the south. So if you are here, you belong to a very small group of people... and the land around you is mostly untouched.

Here is the first surprise. This frozen place is, in fact, a desert. Scientists call it a polar desert. Very little rain or snow falls here across the year, less than in many sandy deserts further south. The cold keeps the moisture locked in ice, and the ice moves slowly. Glaciers and ice caps cover a large part of the park. They are not fed by heavy snowfall. Many of them are remnants of colder times, kept alive by the extreme cold.

The mountains around you belong to some of the highest ranges in the Canadian Arctic. Somewhere among them stands Barbeau Peak. It is the highest point in Nunavut, and the highest mountain in eastern North America. On a clear day, the ridges show sharp black rock above long white slopes of ice. Nunataks rise in places, too. A nunatak is a rocky peak that pokes up through a glacier, like an island in a frozen sea.

Now turn your attention to the valleys. In summer, the sun does not set here for months. This continuous light changes everything. Low plants grow quickly in the short season. Arctic willow spreads flat along the ground, never rising to the height of a tree. Purple saxifrage and Arctic poppies add small spots of colour. Sheltered areas around Lake Hazen form a kind of thermal oasis, a pocket where summers are slightly warmer and plant life is richer than the surrounding land.

Lake Hazen itself is one of the largest lakes in the High Arctic. For much of the year, a thick cover of ice seals its surface. Arctic char live in its cold, deep water. Researchers have studied the lake for decades, because it records changes in climate very clearly. Meltwater from the glaciers feeds it each summer. Scientists watch how much water arrives and how long the ice stays. The lake works like a slow instrument, measuring the warming of the north.

Animals here are few, but they are remarkable. Muskoxen graze in the valleys, wrapped in coats of long, dark hair. Arctic hares sometimes gather in groups, and their white fur stands out against brown ground in summer. Arctic wolves also live in this region. They are pale, almost white, and some have shown little fear of people, because they rarely meet any. Peary caribou, a small Arctic type of caribou, also range across the islands. Keep a respectful distance from every animal you see.

People have travelled this land for thousands of years. Archaeologists have found traces of early Paleo-Inuit groups. These people came from the west long before the ancestors of today's Inuit. Later, the Thule people arrived. The Thule are the direct ancestors of modern Inuit, and they brought skin boats, dog sleds, and new hunting methods. Small stone rings and old campsites still mark the land. Treat every arrangement of stones as a possible historic site, and leave it exactly as you find it.

The park also holds a darker chapter of Arctic exploration. On the shore of Lady Franklin Bay stands Fort Conger. In the early 1880s, an American scientific expedition led by Adolphus Greely built a station here. The expedition was part of an international effort to study the polar regions. When the promised supply ships did not arrive, the men retreated south. Most of them did not survive. Later, the explorer Robert Peary used the site, and the wooden huts that remain today date from his time.

North of the main island lies Ward Hunt Island, small and windswept. For many years it served as a starting point for expeditions that tried to reach the North Pole over the sea ice. Nearby, along the northern coast, there were once broad ice shelves. These are thick floating plates of ancient ice, fixed to the shore. In recent decades, large sections have cracked and broken away. Their loss is one of the clearest signs of change in the High Arctic.

A visit here demands humility. Weather can close in quickly, and planes may wait days for a safe window. Parks Canada requires visitors to register and attend an orientation before they head out. Rivers swell with meltwater during warm afternoons, so crossings are often safer in the cool morning. Polar bears are rare in the interior, but they can appear near the coast. Every trip here is an expedition, even a short one.

There is one more thing many visitors notice only later. Distance plays tricks on the eye in this clear, dry air. A ridge that looks one hour away may take a whole day to reach. Without trees, buildings, or haze, the mind has nothing to measure against. Sound behaves strangely, too. A stone falling on a far slope can seem to land right beside you. The emptiness here is a real, physical experience.

So before you move on, stand still once more. Look at the stones under your feet, sorted and cracked by countless winters of frost. Look at the ice on the far mountains, holding light that seems to have no source. Notice how small your own sounds feel here. Very few people will ever stand where you are standing now. When you walk away, take your footprints with you... and leave the top of the world as quiet as you found it.