Ivvavik National Park sees fewer than 100 tourists per year, and the only trails in the park are those worn by wildlife. Photographer Nick Westover went there in spring, and gives us an inside look at some of the peculiarities of Arctic camping: squishy hiking, midnight sun, dramatic tors and sandal-stealing sik-siks.
Flying in from Inuvik, our touchdown at Sheep Creek is pleasantly soft but with a rather bumpy rollout – no surprise when you see the size of the rocks that “pave” the tundra airstrip. The field is marked with old fuel drums, one end muddling off into tundra and trees, the other a precipitous drop into the creek.
The vastness of the landscape is striking, and I find it difficult to determine distance and scale. Maybe it’s the substantial, snow-capped mountains combined with short boreal trees and the rolling openness of the Firth River Valley that leaves me somewhat spatially unbalanced.
Our group, made up of hearty Inuvik locals and intrepid southerners, goes for a short hike when we arrive, then a longer one after lunch, and then a steeper one after dinner. In the evening, we leave the campsite and base (Parks Canada’s HQ in Ivvavik), to hike up the shoulder of the nearest mountain. From here, you can see Sheep Creek, which flows into the Firth River. The canyon cut by the fast-moving Firth is in the background.
On our hike, we spot a half dozen Dall’s sheep skittering around the shale mountainside, curiously watching us watch them from a distance (can you spy them above?). Later that evening, a few night owls in our group have a grizzly bear sighting (“night owl” is slightly different in the context of northern summer – it was broad daylight). In the coming days, we see Arctic ground squirrels (“sik-sik” in Inuvialuktun), hare, and moose and ptarmigan scat.
On our last day, we see the wildlife grand prize: four caribou heading north, moving quickly through the trees. They’re only visible for a few minutes, but it’s gratifying to finally spot a small part of the massive Porcupine Caribou herd migration heading to their calving grounds on the coast.
Hiking around the Sheep Creek area isn’t hard for the moderately fit. Perhaps the hardest part is crossing the creek itself. Large shelves of ice remain along the creek’s edge, so a quick knee-deep scamper across the creek verges on excruciating and abruptly wakes anyone still bleary-eyed in the morning.
The higher elevations are all shale, some of it in beautiful sages and purples, but I’m amazed at how high up the wet, boggy tundra extends. Our spring visit makes for some fun, albeit squishy, hiking. We’re lucky to be here early in the season, as this is prime mosquito breeding ground. The caribou are moving fast for a reason.
The conditions are perfect for exploring, but sleeping is another matter. Most people in the north completely block their bedroom windows in the summer, but this isn’t possible in a tent – and I didn’t pack a sleeping mask.
The sun beats down on the tents all day, and is still doing so when we climb into our winter sleeping bags at night (we’d been warned to be prepared for temps as low as -10°C). I lie there sweating until midnight, when the sun – still above the horizon – slips behind a mountain and it feels 10 degrees cooler.
The icing on Ivvavik’s visual cake are tors, dramatic rock outcroppings that have resisted the erosive forces all around them. They jut from peaks and ridges like exclamation points on the landscape.
Another bonus on the trip are the Parks Canada staff, some of whom have connections with this land that go back generations. They fill us in on everything from the regional geography and geology, to which plants are edible or medicinal, to the animals we see and don’t see. Parks Canada also has a strict regime around food and waste at their Sheep Creek base to reduce the risk of animal interactions. There’s a secure hut for food storage, though we’re told sik-siks like to borrow and hide non-food items as well – so watch your sandals!
On our way to the peak Halfway to Heaven, we climb out of a relatively lush river valley and traverse several ridges, walking largely on shale and sometimes on narrow sheep trails worn into steep rocky slopes. Again, I’m struck by the scale and foreignness of the landscape; I’m not able to grasp it.
There’s vegetation, but I’m impressed by how narrow the margins seem to be for survival. Life scrapes by here. Ungulates eat lichen from rocks. Birds lay eggs in shallow, unprotected nests on open hillsides. Thousands of caribou and their young pass through with no time to waste, heading to their wintering grounds in the south. All this in a few short summer months. In Ivvavik National Park, a fragility combined with tenaciousness stands out most for me.
To find out how you can experience your arctic camping trip in Ivvavik National Park, click here.