Exploring Baffin Island: The Baird Expeditions

THE EARLY DISCOVERIES

Baffin, the largest of Canada's Arctic islands and the fifth largest island in the world, lies on the southeast corner of the Arctic Archipelago. While inhabited by the Inuit people since 900 AD, Baffin was first visited by Europeans in 1576. During his search for the Northwest Passage, the British explorer Martin Frobisher landed on Baffin Island near present day Iqualuit. Finding iron pyrite which he mistook for gold, Frobisher undertook two more voyages to the region, with the last in 1578.

Seven years later, Frobisher's countryman John Davis charted the eastern coast of the island and by 1610 Henry Hudson became the first to sail through the Hudson Strait off the island's southern coast. In 1616 William Baffin charted Frobisher Bay, ultimately lending his name to the island and discovering once and for all that the fabled Northwest Passage did not lead through Baffin Island.

The search for a passage through the Arctic continued throughout the 17^th and 18^th centuries as a number of explorers searched the Baffin area without success. Later surveys by the Canadian government using aircraft charted much of the interior and improved maps. However, by the 1950s much of the island remained sparsely populated and unstudied. The two Baird Expeditions (1950 & 1953) were an attempt by the Arctic Institute and its partners to gain a better understanding of this largest of the Arctic islands.

THE FIRST EXPEDITION: 1950 (Expedition Map)

Pat Baird was the first director of the Arctic Institute's Montreal Office and, in the early 1950s, was responsible for organizing two scientific expeditions into Baffin Island. The first, in 1950, went forward with the support of the Canadian government and Air Force, the Geographical Society and a number of other private backers. It was based at Clyde on the east coast of Baffin and expanded inland to include a number of smaller research bases and observation centres.

The party was conveyed there by air, landing on the sea ice from May 19-20th. For 12 weeks the assembly of scientists and adventurers studied the region's plant life, the water, terrestrial animals and the breeding patterns of Arctic birds. Baird's team consisted of glaciologists, zoologists, botanists, geologists, petrologists and a host of other specialists drawn from universities across North America and Europe. Joining them were mountaineers from Switzerland, a photographer from Texas and an artist from Montreal.

Three main camps established
For transportation in the field the expedition depended almost completely on the use of the Arctic Institute's Norseman aircraft, fitted initially with ski-wheels and later with floats. Traveling by air, the group established three main camps connected by radio transceivers. Camp A was the glaciological and meteorological station, situated on the Barnes Ice Cap 100 miles inland from the base at Clyde. Camp B was the biological headquarters, located at the head of Clyde Inlet. Camp M was the mountaineer base which was first established on Swiss Bay at Sam Ford Fiord and later moved to the head of Eglinton Fiord.

By August, longer trips were being undertaken to visit Lake Gillian and Bray Island near the west coast of the island. An important excursion to the south was also undertaken to visit Cape Searle, the site of an immense colony of fulmars (a breed of Northern sea bird) estimated to number between 100,000 and 500,000.

Mountain tops explored
During their three months on Baffin the adventurers in the party, consisting mostly of the Swiss mountaineers, summited 17 mountains ranging up to nearly 6,000 feet. These included the spectacular Mt. Cockscomb (5,330 feet) which dominated the area above the head of Eglinton Fiord. Climbing also gave the party a unique opportunity to study the island's high altitude flora and fauna as well as its unique geological features.

The camps were finally evacuated by the end of August. The ice-strengthened C.D. Howe picked up the party from its base at Clyde and transported them south before the onset of winter. Apart from exploring a vast swath of Canadian territory, the expedition brought back a great quantity of scientific information pertaining to nearly every aspect of the Arctic environment. The trip was such a success a second was soon being planned.

THE SECOND EXPEDITION: 1953 (Expedition Map)

The second expedition to be organized by the Arctic Institute focused further south in the Cumberland Peninsula and took place from May until September of 1953. The expedition was conducted on a slightly smaller scale than the previous trip.

The Cumberland region of Baffin Island had been first visited by John Davis in 1585. Yet, it wasn't until the 1920s that Hudson's Bay posts and RCMP stations brought traders and explorers to the area. By the 1950s however, the interior remained relatively unstudied and for this reason Cumberland was chosen as the site for the 1953 mission.

A Norseman aircraft, flying from Churchill Manitoba, was used to establish the expedition in the field after the party and 4,000 pounds of equipment had been flown to Frobisher Bay by the Canadian Air Force on May 12th. The RCAF provided a great deal of assistance in moving supplies and men and also in providing aerial reconnaissance of the area which had been conducted over the previous decade.

Camps established
The main expedition camp was the Base Camp at Summit Lake in the centre of Pangnirtung Pass at 1,300 feet. Camp A1 was established on the ice cap at 6,725 feet, and A2 at the head of Highway Glacier at 6,300 feet; the latter was later moved to A3 at 3,400 feet and subsequently all the way down the glacier to the Base Camp. The Biological Camp in Owl Valley (600 feet) was established in June from a lakeside cache 1,800 feet above it, the nearest point where the aircraft could land. A mountain cache was also put down at Camp M at 4,500 feet.

Again the party was made up of a diverse selection of scientists from Canada, the United States, and Britain. The Swiss-Foundation for Alpine Research again sent a team of rugged scientist-mountaineers who eventually claimed another eight peaks. Indeed, the Swiss were a group which displayed a combination of interests not regularly found in any one individual: a love of geophysics and the desire to scale icy and uncharted Arctic mountains.

Scientists study region
The mountaineers and scientists spent four months on Baffin studying the region's flora and fauna, its geology and the Penny Icecap. The party traveled largely by foot, ski, and large man-hauled sleds. Over the course of the expedition, scientists traveled the full length of Pangnirtung Pass, the Highway Glacier from the pass to the ice cap, and June River to Padle Fiord. An initial dog-team trip in the Padloping area also gave two McGill scientists a chance to examine the birds and rocks of that region.

Explorer drowns
The trip was considered a success and the camps were evacuated in August with personnel sailing from Pangnirtung for Montreal aboard the C.D. Howe. But success had come at a high cost as Ben Battle, a geomorphologist and Senior Fellow in the McGill University-Arctic Institute Carnegie program, accidentally drowned on July 13th near the Base Camp. Battle remains interred on the glacial ridge overlooking the finest part of the pass where he had worked.

For a more detailed account of the Baird Expeditions, please read the Arctic Institute's Field Reports:

• First Expedition, Clyde Region, 1950.

• Second Expedition, Cumberland Peninsula, 1953