This park in eastern Nunavut Territory of Canada consists of three separate land areas.
- Bylot Island is a spectacular area of rugged mountains, icefields and glaciers, coastal lowlands, and seabird colonies.
- Oliver Sound is a long, narrow fiord with excellent opportunities for boating, hiking, and camping.
- Borden Peninsula is an extensive plateau dissected by broad river valleys. Proclaimed in 2000, it covers 22,000 sq km (8,494 sq mi).
The area has been scoured by both continental ice (the Laurentide Ice Sheet of the Wisconsin glaciation) and localized alpine or cirque glaciers. Glacial features that can be seen in the park include the following: icebergs, moraines, cirques, sand deposits, and talus or scree slopes.
Other features include the hoodoos of the Borden Peninsula and tundra polygons and pingos, which are formed by the freeze-thaw actions of water and ice within the permafrost.
Bylot Island is a migratory bird sanctuary which lies adjacent to the north-eastern tip of Baffin Island. Lancaster Sound, a very large body of water located between Devon Island and Sirmilik, is one of the most productive marine areas in the entire Canadian Arctic. Polynyas are areas of open water in the frozen sea ice.
They are caused by such factors as prevailing winds, tides, local currents, and upwellings of water from the ocean floor. These areas do not freeze in the winter and are the Arctic’s version of a marine oasis. Sheer cliffs plunge to the sea at Baillarge Bay, providing nesting habitat for large numbers of seabirds.
It is believed that the earliest people on Baffin Island were from the Pre-Dorset and Dorset cultures from Alaska dating from about 1700 B.C. to A.D.1000. A second wave of migration from Alaska resulted in the arrival of Thule people into the eastern Arctic around the end of the 11th century. Within the park region, the earliest remains of human occupation are generally those of the Thule culture, although some evidence of the Dorset culture also exists.
The first recorded visit by Europeans to Baffin Island was made by Captains Robert Bylot and William Baffin when they entered Jones Sound and Lancaster Sound in 1616. In 1818, explorers Sir John Ross and Sir William Edward Perry also passed through the area while searching for the Northwest Passage.
There is no on line map at this time.
We would like to thank the staffs at Sirmilik National Park and Parks Canada for providing information for this page.
See also: National Parks of Canada.
(This page was updated November 2012.)
