Kangiqtualuk Uqquqti
Interesting facts
- The north face of Polar Sun Spire, about 1,350 metres high, was first climbed in 1996 by Jeff Chapman, Warren Hollinger and Mark Synnott over 39 days.
- Their route, The Great and Secret Show, graded VII 5.11 A4, was at the time among the hardest big-wall climbs in any mountain setting.
- In 1998 Alex Lowe, Greg Child, Mark Synnott and Jared Ogden made the first ascent of Great Sail Peak's vast wall in Stewart Valley, a side valley of the fjord.
- The 1998 Great Sail Peak team reached the wall by snowmobile across sea ice almost two metres thick, climbing in temperatures near -34 °C.
- At its widest the fjord system spreads to about 19 km across, more than six times the width of its narrow inner channel.
Why it is worth it
Kangiqtualuk Uqquqti is one of the most dramatic fjords of the Arctic: a narrow arm of sea pushing more than 100 km into north-eastern Baffin Island between granite walls that rise almost straight from the water to heights of up to 1,500 m. The fjord is known for its glaciers, and towers and spires of bare rock line both shores, making it one of the great big-wall climbing destinations on the planet.
The fjord runs roughly north-north-east to south-south-west for about 110 km. Its mouth, between Remote Peninsula and Erik Point, is more than 18 km wide, but the channel tapers to around 3 km wide some 50 km inland. Side valleys and branches lead off its shores, including the tributary fjord Kangiqtualuk Agguqti and the Stewart Valley with the Sail Peaks, while Swiss Bay opens on the eastern side. Around 49 km from the mouth, at a bend in the fjord, a single cliff on the eastern shore drops vertically from 1,368 m straight into the sea. Peaks such as Beluga Mountain, Walrus Head Mountain, Broad Peak and Turnagain Peak give the fjord its skyline.
For the Inuit the fjord has long been a traditional hunting ground. For a period it was officially named Sam Ford Fiord, in memory of an Inuk linguist who died in a helicopter accident, but it has since returned to its original Inuktitut name. It lies in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, far from any road, and the scale of its walls and the emptiness of the land around them have drawn climbers, ski mountaineers and BASE jumpers on expeditions to this remote coast.
Getting there
The nearest community is the hamlet of Clyde River, roughly 80–95 km to the east, with Pond Inlet about 320 km to the north-west. The nearest airport is Clyde River Airport (YCY), just outside the hamlet. There are no roads to the fjord.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Kangiqtualuk Uqquqti formerly Sam Ford Fiord is an isolated, elongated Arctic fjord on Baffin Island's northeastern coast in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada. The Inuit settlement of Pond Inlet is 320 km (200 mi) to the northwest and Clyde River is 80 km (50 mi) to the east.
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