Going up North
Being “on the land” in the arctic is not for everyone. It is not staying at an all inclusive resort or sleeping in a luxury cruise ship cabin. We travel the land and ice using snow machines, and camp in the high arctic. You don’t just see it - you experience it.
Air Travel to Nunavut
Traveling to Nunavut involves flying with Canadian North Airlines, usually out of Ottawa (however there are a couple other hub options). It is important to understand a little about Canadian North prior to your travel. From Ottawa, most people arrive in Nunavut via Iqaluit - the capital. Iqaluit is relatively big with a full service airport handling jet traffic. So tourists won’t see a big difference in their air travel to Iqaluit.
Traveling further north on Baffin Island is much different, as it involves smaller turbo engine aircraft and dirt airstrips, and so weather cancellations are more common for flights. The hamlets of Nunavut are not connected by roads (even the hamlets have very few miles of roads). Air transport is a life- line for the territory. As such, priority is given to important cargo and passenger transport (emergency). Tourism is not an emergency.
Therefore, passengers and/or checked bags can be canceled or delayed. This can have a big impact on your travel experience, and this is the reason we ask travelers to obtain trip interruption/cancellation insurance.
Where is Baffin Island?
Our tours are all on Baffin Island in Nunavut, a territory in Northern Canada.
Travellers fly into Iqaluit, the capital city, and then onward to their destination.
We have three major tour locations, in Pond Inlet, Arctic Bay, and West Baffin.
Hotels and Accommodation
Our tours are “land based”, so your experience is mostly in our custom camps. But on the way your itinerary may require stay in a hotel in Ottawa, or Iqaluit. Being a large city and capital of Canada, Ottawa has a wide variety of hotel options. Iqaluit also has many hotel and B&B options. The hamlets north of Iqaluit have one or two small hotels. Our tours provide a hotel night on the last day prior to returning south. These small hotels provide double occupancy accommodation only. So you get to relax, have a shower before returning south.
Food
All Baffin Safari expedition meals are mostly common western dishes. Each tour we also make every effort to provide a meal of locally caught arctic char.
And off course, we can certainly cater to any specific diets and food requirements - all you need to do is let us know!!
Much of the local Inuit culture revolves around the foods and the methods in which they prepare their meals. Inuit families highly value the time they spend together as they hunt, prepare and feast upon what they feel has been provided to them by the land. It is an important time to bond and to teach traditional ways of thinking and living.
Water
Our camps don’t have showers. All our fresh water comes from Ice burgs. Melting the ice and heating it is a very big job every day. If you get sold on “shower marketing” - don’t be fooled.
Camping
What is camp accommodation like? It’s camping. We use a mobile camp carried by Komatiq and Usiikvii. It enables us to react to the dynamic habitat of sea ice and find areas of better wildlife opportunities or weather that may be too far if we had to return to a stationary base camp.
What is a Komatiq?
A wooden sled used to move gear and people, and pulled by snowmobile. It is an Inuit word, and not likely translated to English until the 1950's. They have evolved from hundreds of years of ice and land travel in the north. With no nails or screws, they withstand the constant bumps of the ice and land through their ability to flex without breaking.
What is a Usiikvii?
A box made of wood on a komatiq, used for gear or people - and often for sleeping.
Keeping warm
We have a warm tent for eating and “lounging” and we keep you warm sleeping in the highest quality cold weather sleeping bags, purchased new annually and we provide new felt inserts on each tour. For safety reasons, we do not heat our sleep mini cabins or yurts.
Mini cabins
New for the 2023 season we designed these to be functional and they were exactly that. When tents were blowing down in storms, the wooden sleep cabins were fine. When tents on the ice were floating in water, the sleep cabins were high and dry. We will be continuing to use these, with improved models, for all our tours, including glass dome yurts for our Aurora tour.
Equipment and Clothing
A visit to the Arctic region definitely requires the right equipment and clothing. It is a careful balance of making sure that you not only have the right gear but also the right amount of gear.
During spring in the high arctic, EXTREME clothing is not required, as the temperatures are moderated by long hours of sunlight. However, for very little cost, simple, high quality and comfortable under layers can be purchased at one of the many expedition shops in Ottawa (and all in one district)
Connectivity
A Baffin Safari trip gives you the opportunity to switch off your mobile, put down the iPad and disconnect from the technologies that are a major part of our everyday.
All Baffin Safari Guides have their own Delorme Satellite Communicator which allows for text messaging and SOS. Clients are welcome to use our communicators for messaging loved ones back home.
