B  Summit Experiences  A
and East Coast Research, 1966

Our helicopter pilot David Harrison made a remarkable contribution to the final three summers of the Baffin Island expeditions (1965, 1966, and 1967). He imperceptibly became a full member of the team. His previous flying experience in a variety of fields, from agriculture and forestry to oil exploration, in many parts of the world, together with his extensive landscape curiosity and interest in our research, gave him a special position as confidant, far beyond his official duties as helicopter pilot. He was perceived by students and regular staff alike as an independent-minded, wise, and sympathetic friend who was outside the formal federal government order of command. Tom, his engineer, was a stolid, reliable, mechanical genius, who reinforced everyone’s vital confidence in David’s ability to get people safely into and out of difficult terrain in almost all types of weather. Tom was also an excellent cook, and his fresh hot bread became a memorable addition to the somewhat routine freeze-dried menu.

David was enthusiastic about his mission and always ready with exciting stories about flying in the Canadian West, New Zealand, and beyond—in both accessible areas (flying Santa Claus at Christmas in New Zealand; doing airborne traffic patrol over Ottawa at rush hour) and far-from-base remote situations (delivering a single-engine monoplane from Croydon, UK, to Rangoon for the Burmese Air Force; overflying dense tropical rainforest in Panama). He had published several articles, which were embellished with his sharp and still-British sense of humour. Three separate articles in Shell Aviation News (Harrison, 1967a, 1967b; Harrison & Benjamin, 1967) with titles that speak for themselves—“Relief Information Unreliable” and “Peak Performance”—were based, in part, on our Baffin Island expeditions and I was present on several of the adventures he described. They did not refer explicitly to our operations; I suppose we stretched too many air regulations. David also co-authored with me a colourful article entitled “Rotorcraft on Research,” in the Canadian Geographical Journal (Ives & Harrison, 1967), which spoke to the more serious logistical issues of Arctic terrain research.

David’s duties in Baffin were twofold. First, he had the task of flying in logistical support for a large and complex field research party in a remote mountainous setting amid the usual vagaries of “summer” Arctic weather (snow, cloud, fog, rain, high winds). The title of the first, two-part article, “Relief Information Unreliable,” relates to some of the challenges faced by pilots using aviation maps that had not yet integrated the relief information from the quite recent air photos (see chapter 3, note 9). Instead, the aviation maps had just those three stark words of warning—“Relief Information Unreliable”—in place of the usual contours and peak elevations. To this should be added communication systems extremely unreliable, another endemic hazard of the period for bush aircraft in the Far North. For us, the safety factor was enhanced by addition of a second helicopter in 1967, chartered jointly with the Canadian Wildlife Service, members of which were researching the summer nesting grounds of the blue goose in the Nettilling and Amadjuak lakes area, in southwestern Baffin. Similarly, late in each summer season, as more open water became available, the arrival of a Cessna floatplane added to the flexibility of our logistics and enabled gas-caches for the helicopters to be laid out relatively inexpensively. The Cessna was also a good emergency backup, although fortunately it was never needed.

The helicopter’s first task for the 1966 summer was the routine ferrying of arriving and departing personnel between the nearest DEW Line site, the Inugsuin Fiord base camp, and scattered field sites, plus the frequent transfer of two- or three-person light tent camps across an area of about 250 by 350 kilometres. Its second task was direct support of specific research activities. This included placing expedition members at numerous locations along the outer northeast Baffin Bay coast—north and south of Clyde River, where open water for the Cessna floatplane was either non-existent or uncertain. An important part of the fieldwork entailed the systematic tracing of glacial and raised marine shore features over long distances and support of the high-altitude glaciological work on the Decade Glacier. To this must be added my field projects, such as the examination of numerous mountaintops for evidence of past glacial (ice age) activity and photography of the entire fiord and mountain landscape using the Hasselblad medium-format camera. David assured me that this combined project was his favourite because it gave him a novel and unusual opportunity to contribute to extending the frontiers of Canadian Arctic mountain geography.

The larger logistic problems facing our field plans related primarily to remoteness from Ottawa, or “the South,” and our dependency on access via the DEW Line. The Inugsuin base camp itself was located 120 kilometres from the nearest DEW Line station (Fox-3). The challenge to operations in northeastern Baffin Island was directly associated with the landscape—a 160-kilometre-wide mountain zone cut by numerous precipitous fiords, themselves exceeding 100 kilometres in length. Between the fiords, the long rugged peninsulas support numerous local ice caps and glaciers, some extending down to sea level, and are dissected by deep, glacially carved valley troughs. The outer coastal strip is mostly flat and, in some places, ten to fifteen kilometres wide; in others, it can be a narrow strip of a hundred paces. The coastline is backed by a steep rise to alpine-like peaks, many of which extend to heights of 1,200 to 1,500 metres asl. The highest summits, forming the height of land, cut at right angles across the midsection of the fiords. From that point, they slope gradually down to the southwest, with the relief becoming less rugged, until merging with the rolling inland plateau surmounted by the Barnes Ice Cap.

The only settlement in the entire field area was Clyde River, on the site of a traditional Inuit encampment; by the 1950s, it had an RCMP post, radio station, and small Hudson’s Bay Company store. Some nine kilometres farther northeast, on the outer coast at Cape Christian, there was a U.S. Coast Guard LORAN station not part of the DEW Line system. The topographic map coverage, at scales of 1:500 000 and 1:250 000, was totally inadequate for secure navigation from the air. We were aware of the height of some of the highest summits as reported by the mountaineering exploits of the AINA 1950 Baffin Island expedition (such as Eglinton Tower at over 1,300 metres). However, detailed topographic information was scant and, aside from the major fiords and the more prominent headlands, even place names were lacking. As a helicopter pilot in a rugged mountainous region that was also subject to sudden changes in weather, especially rapidly spreading fog in the outer fiords and along the coastal lowlands, David had to make sure that he could find his way “home” (usually with one or more of us on board) if suddenly hit by inclement conditions—and without running out of fuel.

Sudden changes in wind speed and direction provided a special challenge. Winds blowing in opposite directions could be encountered at certain altitudes, especially near the steep cliffs of the fiords, where the helicopter could suddenly and alarmingly gain or lose more than a hundred metres of altitude in the updrafts and downdrafts. Moderate to strong katabatic winds associated with the ice caps and glaciers required a “seat-of-the-pants” approach to flying. The only available weather forecasts were those we could cook up ourselves. These improved as we grew progressively more accustomed to the region, but local conditions were something David usually had to anticipate and deal with based on his day-to-day flying experience.1

Of great advantage, being close to latitude 70° N as we were, were the twenty-four hours of daylight extending into August that meant there was no risk of being “benighted.” Midnight operations were common as it was necessary to make use of all available good weather, and working by the light of the midnight sun was delightful. Some of the most unforgettable field research moments of my life involved writing up notes while sitting with David on a mountaintop close to midnight, the helicopter quietly parked and out of sight behind us, an abrupt drop in front of us of more than a thousand metres to a dark green fiord, with fiery red pinnacles and ice caps stretching across the far horizon, and the all-pervading silence.

Exploration by helicopter along Inugsuin Fiord

One morning’s account of that summer may provide the reader with a sense of the outstanding advantage provided by field helicopter operations. In perfect weather, it was to be a rewarding day in all aspects. We were all set to leave base camp by 9:00 a.m. David and his engineer Tom had checked and re-checked everything that could be checked. The passenger-side Plexiglas door had been removed and I sat next to David, firmly belted in, with the large Hasselblad case gripped between my knees and the camera with its 250mm lens clasped in both hands. We had lunch, extra food, a light tent and primus stove, climbing rope, and ice axe all carefully strapped onto the external cargo racks.2 (Map 8)

MAP 8: Detailed coverage of main activities in the fiord and outer coast in 1966 and 1967. Several of the names proposed for previously unnamed mountains and glaciers are included. The double triangle represents the Inugsuin Fiord base camp.

Soon we were climbing up past the Decade Glacier (Fig. 25) and heading north-northeast in calm weather with strands of cirrus, high above us, reflected in the still fiord waters. Twenty-five kilometres into our flight, we turned the first great bend of the fiord and passed under the Inugsuin Pinnacles (officially named Nuksuklorolu Mountain on the 1984 McBeth Fiord 1:250 000 map) at about six hundred metres asl. As we approached a second 90-degree bend, we headed for a spectacular trough stretching to the southeast. I indicated to David that we should leave the fiord and fly through the trough. We flew past glaciers large and small that were descending from ice-capped summits all around us. Another 90-degree turn led us into what was later named Perfection Pass. (Fig. 26) There were several lakes, one of which was about three kilometres long and partially dammed at its far end by a series of end moraines. The innermost moraine was steep-sided and very prominent. It formed the margin of a glacier that jutted onto the floor of the pass. The outer moraine was much more subdued in shape and partially covered with tundra vegetation, indicating that it had been laid down probably several thousand years ago.

Fig. 25: Decade Glacier, named for the International Hydrological Decade. This late-evening view of the glacier represents a perfect archival record. The rose-tinted light-toned areas, a result of limited rock lichen growth, had been covered by permanent ice and snow more than one hundred years previously. The progress of the ablation season on the glacier displays the exposure of different years of ice as well as the small remnant of snow at the higher altitudes from the previous accumulation season. Old end moraines in the foreground reach into the shadow. (Photo: August 1966)

Fig. 26: Perfection Pass. The terminus of the glacier, which has penetrated to the floor of the pass, has retreated from two sets of end moraines of greatly different ages. The multiple ridges of the inner moraine system are light in colour because of a near total absence of vegetation. They are ice-cored and unstable. The outer low arcuate form (concentric to ithe inner moraine must be several thousand years old; its former ice core has melted and vegetation has spread across its surface. (Photo: July 1966)

Fig. 27: View from Mount Cook. The view shows the precipitous south face looking toward the outer section of Inugsuin Fiord. Baffin Bay is in the distant haze. (Photo: July 1966)

Fig. 28: A textbook example of glacier terminal features, from the summit of Mount Cook: lateral, medial, and end moraines, eskers, moraine-dammed lakes, and glacial outwash plain (sandur). (Photo: July 1966)

Fig. 29: Helicopter descent for closer inspection of glacier features seen from the summit of Mount Cook (see Fig. 28). (Photo: July 1966)

The pass ran roughly parallel to the main fiord but was separated from it by a massive rock wall capped by ice. The pass opened onto an area of gently rounded hills, with views across the outer part of Inugsuin Fiord where it begins to merge into Clyde Inlet. At this point, we turned sharply westward and flew back along the fiord until we were close to our original entrance to Perfection Pass. We then gradually ascended the face of a high mountain that I later named Mount Cook in memory of Frank Cook, an old friend and member of the Geographical Branch staff who had died in tragic circumstances two years earlier. We landed on its broad summit at about 1,200 metres and switched off the engine. It was time for lunch and an extensive photography session.

The broad summit was surrounded on all sides by precipitous rock walls and partly covered by a small ice cap. By far the best photo angle was to be obtained by leaning out as far as possible over the northeastern edge. I found that I could not lean out far enough and maintain my balance so I anchored myself with the climbing rope to David and the helicopter, which served as a useful belay with handy places for attaching the rope. The security of the belay enabled me to edge out and down a smooth sloping rock surface to reach the desired camera angle. David was conspicuously uncomfortable! When I was back on level ground, unfastening the rope from the helicopter, he insisted I had forced that manoeuvre on him as payback for the adventure of demonstration autorotations and other “passenger training” exercises in the helicopter the previous summer. However, the outstanding photograph justified—for me, at any rate—my true and very proper motivation.3 (Figs. 27, 28, 29)

On another occasion the following week while I was fully engaged with the Hasselblad on a summit similar to that of Mount Cook, a somewhat bored David inadvertently nodded off to sleep beyond my line of sight and rather too close to the edge of a sheer precipice. Meanwhile, I completed the photography and replaced the various pieces of the camera system in its case. I looked around, but my pilot (and my only way off the peak) was absolutely nowhere in sight. My heart leapt and I began an agitated search. I quickly found him asleep behind some large boulders but, for a sleeping body, I thought he was far too close to the edge of disaster. I approached very gingerly, found a secure foothold, and took a firm grip on his collar, gently nudging him awake. His comment was this: “You might have had to make an embarrassing call back to base camp—that is, if the radio ever worked.” (In retrospect, I’m sure David was really feigning sleep, but at the time it was all too believable.)

Fig. 30: David Harrison provides a scale. The eskers seen from above are ice-cored—this was the case for nearly all the glacier terminal features. In southern Canada such features emerged from the ice sheets of the last ice age and were not usually ice-cored because of the much milder climate; therefore, their complete form was largely preserved. In the case of Baffin Island and other regions under an Arctic climate, such ice-cored features would largely disappear with glacier retreat and a warming climate. (Photo: July 1966)

Fig. 31: “The Inugsuin Pinnacles,” Nuksuklorolu Mountain. The pinnacles are illuminated by the late-evening light. After failing to make a touchdown with the helicopter, David attempted the ledge at the edge of the summit ice cap in the distance (shown by arrow). This attempt was also aborted, due to persistent downdrafts. (Photo: July 1966)

After lunch, we made landings on several mountaintops on both sides of this section of the fiord, always searching for glacial erratics and any other indications of the former passage of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. Finding none, we landed on the lower slopes of one of the two glaciers down onto which we had looked from the top of Mount Cook the week before. (Fig. 30) The objective was to examine and photograph the details of its terminus close to the fiord margin. Following this, we decided that our final sortie of the day would be a landing on top of one of the Inugsuin Pinnacles. The first landing approach proved too hazardous because of the updrafts and downdrafts and insufficient flat space on the summit, but David insisted on compensating for my disappointment by changing altitude and direction to complete a figure-8 flight around and between the upper parts of the two highest rock towers, giving me another remarkable photo op. As the gusty downdrafts seemed to have subsided, we made a new approach, to a possible landing spot on the edge of a prominent broad summit several kilometres farther in from the fiord. This massif, rising at least 1,300 metres, was almost entirely covered by a summit ice cap, leaving just a narrow ledge of bare rock and boulders along its southwest edge. (Fig. 31) We intended to land on the ledge and inspect the surface. But, as we descended to within about fifteen metres of the ledge, we felt ourselves again caught in the downslope air and were forced over the edge, dropping sixty to eighty metres before David regained complete control. As we pulled away from the influence of the downdraft, he casually asked, “Well, Jack, how about another try?”

Even with a different approach, we had the same experience of being in the grip of a mountain god, only more forcibly. Once more David pulled safely away. He asked again, “One more try?” (I suppose trying to gauge how important this particular place and its samples were to my research). To my positive response, he replied, “Oh dear, I was sure you would say no! Well, sorry, Jack, it’s time for tea.” And so we wisely called it a day and pointed back home along the fiord to base camp.4

Investigating summits from Anvil Mountain to Clyde Inlet

The helicopter had been employed for several days to make a series of camp moves while, back at base, I had prepared for a more extensive investigation of mountaintops from the head of Inugsuin Fiord to the coast north of the Clyde River settlement. With our usual pack of emergency equipment, we flew down the fiord and ascended over its southern end, aiming for what would later be named Anvil Mountain. Its massive bulk rose almost to one thousand metres about six kilometres south-southeast of Inugsuin base camp. As we approached touchdown, we saw it was partially ice-capped although the highest point was a wide platform of frost-shattered bedrock, essentially featureless except for one giant boulder—the “anvil.”

We landed close to the highest point, the huge boulder, which was about nine metres long and three metres high. It was composed of coarse granite gneiss. How had it formed? Was it a glacial erratic at a critical elevation? Or was it a more resistant section of the underlying bedrock that had projected higher and higher as its less resistant surroundings had been worn down during eons of surface erosion? It was situated in an area of large frost-shattered debris—the common European technical term is felsenmeer (sea of boulders). Identification of such large isolated blocks as glacial erratics had been a major source of controversy in Scandinavia, Greenland, and Labrador for more than sixty years.

Fig. 32: Anvil Mountain. The boulder field of the plateau-like top of Anvil Mountain is capped by a giant block (David Harrison is pictured for scale). While it was difficult to determine the origin of such a block—a glacial erratic or part of the bedrock more resistant to erosion than its surrounding rock?—in this case the answer was suggested by the small boulder precariously perched on its summit (shown by arrow). Moving glacier ice must have emplaced at least the small boulder. (Photo: August 1966)

Closer examination of the huge anvil-shaped block revealed a much smaller block sitting on its crest. (Fig. 32) It was composed of a contrasting type of granite gneiss. This small block must have been placed there by overriding glacier ice, even if the larger block on which it rested was in situ (i.e., in place as a section of the bedrock especially resistant to erosion—in other words, a tor). However, I thought this episode of glacial history must have occurred long prior to the last ice age. This was a tentative conclusion, because in the 1960s there was no means of resolving such a problem by any known dating technique. The interpretation—“How old?”—was part of the related controversy. The discovery at Anvil Mountain was at least another step forward in unravelling the glacial history of the region, even if the precise chronology could not be resolved.

After shooting both monochrome and colour rolls of film, with David as a convenient scale, we set off northeastward along Inugsuin Fiord. We flew close to the northwest wall of the fiord, which, for most of its midsection, rises precipitously more than eight hundred metres from sea level. Where the slopes were less steep, short sections of glacial lateral moraine could be traced, matched by similar features on the opposite side of the fiord at about the same altitude. Both sets were about six hundred metres above the fiord and sloped gradually down toward the outer coast. Here it appeared certain that we were following the outlines of a former giant outlet glacier that, during the last ice age, must have drained from the continental ice sheet over central Baffin Island and flowed down northeastward to enter Baffin Bay. This episode would have been much more recent than the occasion on which the small boulder was set down on the summit of Anvil Mountain.5

We made several high-altitude landings as we progressed northeastward. These only produced exposures of more felsenmeer (mountaintop detritus), and there were no indications of glacial activity except for the many small present-day ice caps that covered much of the higher ground. After we had passed the Inugsuin Pinnacles, the summits became progressively lower and less alpine in character. At the outer part of the fiord, just before it merged with Clyde Inlet, the highest points were gently rounded and heavily mantled with the ubiquitous boulder debris. We touched down on one summit that was about 750 metres high with a very broken surface from which emerged a series of prominent tors (bedrock knobs) rising between three and five metres above the general level. According to the more conservative of the Scandinavian hypotheses, throughout the ice ages moving ice could not have reached as high as the projecting tors, otherwise it would have eroded them. This was a problem that I had encountered in the Torngat Mountains, where I had discovered definite glacial erratics sitting on top of tors, thereby confounding the original strict interpretation of Eilif Dahl (1955, 1961), a leading Norwegian arctic-alpine botanist and protagonist of the “nunatak hypothesis.” Well below us, probably below the three-hundred-metre level, we could distinguish the continuation of the lateral moraines that we had been following since shortly after leaving the head of Inugsuin Fiord. Below them again, we could follow the glistening, ice-moulded, and polished bedrock surfaces—that is, unequivocal evidence of glacial erosion during the closing phases of the last glaciation. (Figs. 33, 34, 35, 36)

Fig. 33: Mountaintop detritus. Extensive and deep expanses of frost-shattered bedrock had been used extensively in Scandinavia, Greenland, and Labrador as an indication that the high summits had never been submerged beneath a continental ice sheet. Thus, they could have provided locations for the survival of arctic-alpine plant species (the nunatak hypothesis). (Photo: August 1966)

Fig. 34: Mountaintop detritus on three distant summits and in the foreground. Note the small “bump” on the summit at right, shown closer in Fig. 35. (Photo: August 1966)

Fig. 35: The term “tor” originated in Dartmoor, in southwest England. Tors are weathering residuals of harder rock left upstanding as surrounding, less resistant bedrock is worn down more quickly (over a long period of geological time). Because many tors are small and could easily be obliterated by the motion of powerful glaciers, they have often been associated—together with mountaintop detritus and weathering pits (see Fig. 85)—as evidence of the former existence of nunataks. However, this interpretation is challenged by the discovery of glacial erratics on top of tors. (Photo: August 1966)

Fig. 36: Closeup of a tor with scale.

After photographing the tors and collecting rock and soil samples, I decided to name the location “Tor Mountain.” We then headed across Clyde Inlet intending to land above the cliffs that rose abruptly to form the far side of the fiord. As we approached, we could estimate that the cliffs rose between five and six hundred metres to a gently rolling summit surface and our intended landing spot. The air was calm and the surface of the sea barely rippled. Stray pieces of pack ice were scattered below us, thickening in coverage toward Baffin Bay, which was solid white with loose pack interspersed with icebergs, all drifting slowly southeast along the coast. Conditions, at least from our vantage point, seemed ideal.

I remember a distinct sensation of excitement as we closed in on the Clyde cliffs. We were about thirty metres above them. Suddenly I felt we were in free fall. My first reaction was to catch the quite heavy Hasselblad case as it flew up toward the roof of the Plexiglas bubble.6 In no time, far down the cliff, we shuddered to a complete halt like a sudden stop in an elevator. I thought we must have hit some rocky island. Then we began to climb, but also abnormally rapidly. To my dismay, I realized that David was transmitting the international distress signal—“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday”—followed by “Cape Christian, do you read me?” (The Cape Christian U.S. Coast Guard LORAN base was the nearest place with twenty-four-hour receivers likely to hear us.)

According to David’s subsequent assessment, our first precipitous descent had been “at a rate of 800 feet/minute which seemed to be leading us straight to a watery grave and then, after two sledge-hammer jolts, into an equally violent 1,500 feet/minute updraft.” He went on to recall what happened next:

At times like this, though one is almost too busy to be terrified, it is nice to have radio contact with someone. I passed my position and plight to … Cape Christian. Back came a reassurance in a somewhat incongruous Alabama drawl: “Cap’n says to come raht in, sah. He’ll have a cool beer waitin’ foh ya if ya can make it in, sah.”

With mixed emotions, we failed to reach the beer, which would have felt so good in my dry mouth even though I rarely drink beer. After one slightly less threatening repeat of the “big dipper” performance, David struggled out of the turbulence and fled to the south side of the fiord. Here we set up our emergency Arctic Guinea tent in absolutely calm conditions. Wind? What wind? The low Arctic sun was beaming down from a near-cloudless sky. A life-threatening situation had been a highly localized event. (Fig. 37)

This time, the radios worked to great effect. David was quickly in radio contact with Inugsuin base camp, from which engineer Tom’s step-by-step instructions walked David through a thorough physical “external” of the entire craft. To David’s surprise, a piece of the metal framework had actually snapped off, but apparently that was of no serious account, merely a measure of the immense forces of nature that had held us momentarily in their grasp. David’s and Tom’s main concern was the alignment of the main blades and the tail rotor. Together they determined that there was only a slight distortion on the main blades, which Tom thought would not cause any problem. In our otherwise perfect Arctic paradise on the remote shore we rested a calm twelve hours at our campsite and cautiously flew back to base camp the following day. The section of the Clyde Inlet cliffs where we experienced our encounter with the ferocious downdrafts was subsequently named The Maw, and the small island at its base Downdraft Island.

During our long wait on outer Clyde Inlet, David related another cautionary tale. The previous week, he had helped set up a light camp on Ekalugad Fiord from which John Andrews was to make a more detailed examination of the local geomorphology than Olav and I had managed the previous year. Leaving John and his field assistant, John England, David had taken the helicopter out over Baffin Bay beyond the DEW Line station on the summit of Cape Hooper, at about six hundred metres. He had found himself instantly enveloped in a thick fog. Rising through it, he could make out the mountain summits beyond the fog-enshrouded coast. As he was not enthusiastic about spending a lonely and very cool night on a mountaintop, he eventually found a hole in the fog and descended, thinking that he could get underneath it. In this he was mistaken. The fog was socked in tightly down to almost zero-zero altitude/visibility on the landfast sea ice. So he cut forward speed down to little more than a crawl, feeling his way, with some concern, toward the coastal cliffs. As he crept along, close to head height above the sea ice surface, all of a sudden something and someone loomed up immediately ahead of the bubble. David practically crashed head-on into two Inuit on snowmobiles. He related that it would have been hard to determine who was the more astonished; he made a quick decision not to stop, as he now realized that he could follow the snowmobile tracks around Cape Hooper and back into the fiord. A few more anxious minutes later, he emerged from the fog and found his way back to camp. He told John he would have loved to hear the Inuits’ version of the event.

Fig. 37: SOS to Inugsuin Base Camp. The helicopter sits awaiting a radio checkout from engineer Tom at base camp. David had managed to squeeze out of the massive downdrafts under the cliffs on the skyline. Fourteen hours of peace and relaxation followed before a gentle cruise back “home.” (Photo: August 1966)

Shadow Mountain and “The Keyhole”

Several helicopter traverses were made along McBeth and Itirbilung fiords, the next two fiords south of Inugsuin, and the same pattern of mountaintop hopping was continued. From the great bend of Itirbilung Fiord, about fifty kilometres out from base camp, we came upon a massive U-shaped trough trending roughly north–south. It cut through a series of the higher mountains that were dissected by several large glaciers descending onto the trough floor. One particular mountain seemed especially appropriate for my purpose. It was composed of three separate summits, the main one looking as if it was one of the highest in the entire area. The top was bare of ice and snow, and we made an easy landing in good weather. It proved an excellent survey point. And there was no evidence on the summit of the former passage of glacier ice.

From our summit perch, we could see far below us a large glacier with two gigantic erratic blocks on its surface. This afforded me an outstanding, textbook example of glacial erratics actually in the process of down-glacier transport, eventually to be deposited on the trough floor once the glacier had carried them to its terminus. We flew down. David was in an expansive mood and landed on the very top of one of the blocks. He asked if I would go out onto the glacier surface and photograph the helicopter sitting there on its precarious-looking eyrie. There was a small snag. I had forgotten my climbing rope and, since the sides of the block were sheer and more than six metres high, we were marooned on top. So we lifted off again and landed on the glacier surface next to the second huge block. It was partially split, leaving a wide central air gap—“The Keyhole,” we immediately christened it. With some manoeuvring, we staged a photograph. (Figs. 38, 39, 40, 41, 42) David is seen through the cleft, steering the helicopter to appear as if he were about to put the “key” (the helicopter) in the “hole.” In the fullness of time, the glacier was officially named the Keyhole Glacier, and the high mountain perch at 1,640 metres asl became Shadow Mountain.7

Fig. 38: Another high summit: Shadow Mountain, 1,640 m. Tors (right of helicopter), frost-shattered bedrock, and no trace of the former presence of glacier ice. (Photo: August 1966)

Fig. 39: A summit with a view. Looking down onto what was later named “Keyhole Glacier,” another textbook example of a glacier with lateral, medial, and multiple end moraines, and also two “small” rocks (shown by arrow) on its surface. (Photo: August 1966)

Fig. 40: Helicopter closeup during the descent to inspect the “small” rocks on the surface of the glacier. (Photo: August 1966)

Fig. 41: The chopper, pictured for scale, gives a better sense of the size of one of the “small” rocks. Recent satellite imagery shows that both boulders have moved down-glacier over the last fifty years and are now hard to distinguish amongst the end moraine material. (Photo: August 1966)

Fig. 42: A very rare example of a chopper stunt. The second giant erratic had a major flaw: the keyhole—hence the name “Keyhole Glacier.” David never came close but we felt the need for a simulated fly-through. The first giant erratic can be seen to the left of the helicopter. (Photo: August 1966)

The main summer operations of 1966

This year the field operations had begun on May 10. Staff and equipment reached the various early season field sites from Frobisher by seven chartered DC-3 ski-equipped flights between May 10 and May 26. During this early period, the main activities centred on the Barnes Ice Cap. After the middle of June, the various geomorphological groups were airlifted to their respective sites, mainly by helicopter. David Harrison arrived at the Inugsuin base camp with CF-IFF, a Bell G2A similar to CF-FCK, on June 19 and remained in great demand until the very end of the season, on August 28. A Cessna 185, under charter from Gander Aviation (Newfoundland), reached Inugsuin on August 9 and provided vital backup and relief to the helicopter, considering that the total field party numbered twenty-seven. Once again, the breakthrough of women in the field was demonstrated: graduate UBC geomorphologist June Ryder was assisted by Jean Logie, and Jane Philpot of the permanent branch staff was aided by Penny Crompton, a geography undergrad from the University of Toronto. The organizational/staffing arrangements reflected the reorganization of the department—now the Department of Energy, Mines, and Resources. Thus, work on the Decade Glacier had become the responsibility of the Waters Research Branch: specifically, Ken Simpson, aided by regular Geographical Branch summer students.

There were two additional significant extensions. Dr. Rolf Feyling-Hanssen joined us from Denmark to undertake a detailed investigation of the cliff sedimentary stratigraphy along the Clyde Foreland. In September, Olav, supported by the Marine Science Branch (Bedford Institute of Oceanography), secured the co-operation of the DOT: it allocated the Canadian Coast Guard ships CCGS Labrador and CCGS d’Iberville. Olav was thus able to track seafloor and fiord-bottom topography along the northeast coast over a total distance of close to five thousand kilometres.

The summer activities also took on an entirely new aspect. We had been contacted by the Canadian Wildlife Service senior animal ecologist, Dr. Doug Pimlott, with a request to assist (insofar as assistance was practical) a visiting Time-Life photographer, Stan Wayman. Wayman’s large corpus of work had included images of President Lyndon Johnson’s family, shots of the first U.S. Beatles concert, and a wide range of nature photographs. His mission for Life magazine on this occasion was to photograph denning activities of the Baffin Island subspecies of the grey wolf (Canis lupus manningi). As he intended to visit Fox-3 (Dewar Lakes), Wayman would be close to our general area of activities, making the provision of limited logistical assistance manageable. I agreed to assist. It appeared that the Baffin Island project had evolved into a world-class interdisciplinary and international research undertaking, attracting the attention, albeit indirectly, of an internationally renowned magazine.

The Barnes Ice Cap in 1966

Brian Sagar, with summer students Art Froese and Derek Reimer, continued the glacier mass balance studies across the northern half of the ice cap, while Olav, assisted by Dick Cowan, John England, and Peter Lewis, tackled the southern half. The stake network was again expanded. A total of 280 stakes were installed at intervals of approximately 1.25 kilometres. This included three courses of stakes around the southern dome that were also to be used for precise movement survey. To this end, they were surveyed in to base lines off the ice cap. This work was facilitated by P. Henderson of the departmental Geodetic Survey Division. Given the precise survey of the baseline, a resurvey was planned for the following year, the long time gap between surveys necessitated by what was anticipated to be very slow rates of ice movement. (Fig. 43)

Fig. 43: Southern dome of Barnes Ice Cap. Generator Lake (foreground) is dammed against the ice cap. It spills into Clyde Inlet. If the ice cap were to melt, it would empty its waters in the opposite direction, ultimately into Foxe Basin. (Photo: July 1966)

Field facilities were greatly improved over previous years (with the large hut at the head of Inugsuin Fiord, and the growing number of A-frame huts as designed by Gunnar Østrem, it was beginning to look as though we were there to stay indefinitely). A new A-frame hut was set up beside Generator Lake. At the same time, the DC-3 flew in a J-5 Bombardier tractor together with a six-by-ten-foot Wannigan and sleigh. This combination greatly aided mobility on the ice cap. The much-improved living conditions also enabled onsite analysis of the accumulating field data so that anomalous results could be checked instantly, compared with the far less favourable situation of having to attempt sorting out “strange” data the following winter in Ottawa.

The ice cap mass balance for the 1965–1966 budget year proved positive, and the initial 1964 finding of northeast-to-southwest mass balance asymmetry was reconfirmed. Although less pronounced, the same phenomenon was detected for the northern half of the ice cap. Finally, initial examination of the ice cap surface survey indicated that a section of its southern margin had experienced a sudden slump forward at some time in the past. With the work completed, both field groups assembled at Generator Lake on June 14 and, with the later help of the helicopter, were dispersed to field areas off the ice cap now that the land surface snow cover was beginning to melt. Brian returned to Ottawa.

Decade Glacier survey and glacio-hydrology

Ken Simpson, assisted by Tim Sookocheff, continued and intensified the Decade Glacier study that had been set up by Gunnar Østrem in 1965. Measurements of the previous winter’s accumulation and the 1966 summer ablation were undertaken from May 24 until August 26. A meteorological station was maintained near the camp at 950 metres with observations at twelve-hour intervals. The by-no-means-unusual problems that faced glaciological research reduced the value of results from the early part of the season, especially the high winds and blowing snow that limited the value of precipitation measurements. A detailed topographic survey was made with the precise measurement of a baseline and control stations. This would then provide ground control for the air photography to be attempted in August, the objective being to produce a closely contoured map, scale 1:10 000, of the glacier and surrounding terrain. (Fig. 44)

Fig. 44: The helicopter has just delivered a snowmobile to the camp high on the Decade Glacier. Tim Sookocheff is retrieving the machine while David readies to return to Inugsuin base. (Photo: August 1967)

Bill Rannie installed automatic recording gauges both on the Decade River, close to the level of the fiord, and on the Inugsuin River above the base camp. He collected a large number of water samples in order to calculate sediment yield and chemical composition. While this type of work was still in its early stages, considerable differences between 1965 and 1966 in all the meteorological, glaciological, and hydrological elements relating to the Decade Glacier were recorded.

Home Bay and Ekalugad Fiord

Several small, semi-independent groups began their research in the Home Bay–Cape Hooper region of the northeast coast. John Andrews tackled the moraine systems and their relationship with the raised marine shore features. He concentrated on the distal (Baffin Bay) side of the prominent Ekalugad moraine that had been observed during reconnaissance missions in 1964 and 1965. Jane Philpot studied the inland (proximal) side of the moraine. Both studies were extended to similar situations in adjacent fiords. In the general Home Bay area, the fiords are much smaller and the terrain less rugged than farther north or south, with a result that the depositional features, both glacial and marine, are much more frequent and better preserved. (Figs. 45, 46, 47)

Fig. 45: First reconnaissance of the Ekalugad sandur (multi-level glacial outwash plain—Icelandic sandur). The Ekalugad end moraine, sandur, and fiord became an intensive study site, especially for Mike Church. (Photo: July 1965)

Fig. 46: From a much lower altitude than in Fig. 45, the two main levels of the Ekalugad sandur are clearly visible. The older, vegetated surface is split by the giant cracks of ice-wedge polygons. (Photo: July 1965)

Fig. 47: The Ekalugad end moraine. Originally the end moraine held back a lake that was forming as the glacier retreated several thousand years ago, when sea level was higher than it is today. As sea level fell and the weight of water in the lake continued to increase, the moraine dam partially collapsed and the lake became an extension of the fiord. (Photo: July 1965)

The inner part of Ekalugad Fiord had been dammed by a large end moraine (Ekalugad Moraine) laid down by an outlet glacier that subsequently retreated inland. The lake that formed behind the moraine dam was gradually being partially filled in by glacial outwash gravels. Eventually the lake overflow broke through the moraine dam as sea level continued to fall during the final phases of the last ice age; this resulted in formation of a lower outwash plain (glacial sandur—an Icelandic term) as the river aggraded to the lowering sea level. Mike Church, assisted by Barry Goodison and, at times, several others, began a study of the multi-layered sandur. Conjointly, June Ryder (later Church) studied the formation of talus slopes and alluvial fans in the same vicinity, an experience that figured significantly in the subsequent development of her career as geomorphologist.

In effect, four small semi-independent field parties operated in the Home Bay–Ekalugad Fiord area throughout most of the 1966 summer. These operations depended almost totally on helicopter support until later in the season when the Cessna could find some open water. John Andrews served as the overall party leader and advisor. The combined effort of these four teams led to the construction of six uplift curves as well as the determination of amounts, rates, and direction of isostatic tilt of the land. The significant fiord-to-fiord variation in heights of the marine limit allowed for determination of the relationships between late-glacial rates of retreat of the main outlet glaciers.

Ancillary studies were undertaken, such as collection of vascular plants for identification by Pat Webber, who had not accompanied us on this occasion, and the recording of dates of flowering and seed-set of many species of vascular plants growing in different micro-environments. Jane also extended Cuchlaine King’s work of the previous year that entailed calculation of pebble roundness; this was to test the sensitivity of Cuchlaine’s method of identifying local changes within different geomorphological environments such as deltas, marine beaches, and alluvial fans.

Clyde Foreland cliffs

Between June 13 and July 27, Dr. Rolf Feyling-Hanssen surveyed cliff stratigraphic profiles along the thirty-kilometre stretch of sea cliffs between Cape Christian and the outlet of the Kogalu River. The substantial and expensive helicopter support, which entailed five camp moves, helicopter time, and fuel between the Inugsuin base camp and Cape Christian, could be given no relief by floatplane support because of unreliable open-water access. Rolf was assisted by Art Froese, Derek Reimer, and Peter Puxley. Twenty-nine profiles were plotted, ranging in height from forty to sixty metres. Large collections of mega-fossils (seashells) and micro-fossils were taken, together with a considerable number of sediment samples. Above the cliffs, the gently sloping surface was also carefully examined. The multiple cliff strata included several layers of glacial till intercalated with marine and fluvio-glacial sediments, comprising the most extensive glacial-interglacial sequence yet discovered in the Canadian Arctic. Rolf believed he had evidence to support the contention that at the height of the last glaciation most of the coastal foreland was submerged by glaciers expanding out from the mouths of Clyde Inlet and Ayr Lake, while sections of land between them remained ice-free. These included the several prominent low hills, such as Tall Sentinel and Small Sentinel, that were believed to have been shaped by ice into moulded forms prior to the last ice age. Analysis of these extensive fossil and sediment collections would take several years.

Remote Lake and the Far Northeast

The peninsula that extends into Baffin Bay between Sam Ford Fiord and Scott Inlet had for several years presented a logistical challenge: it had been impossible to reach it. The outer part was a continuation of the coastal lowland. It was bordered by a series of large lateral moraines that swept out of Sam Ford Fiord, eventually disappearing beneath sea level as they crossed the coastline. They also dammed a sizable lake, and air photographs showed evidence of different former sea levels intermingled with the moraines. I had regarded the locality as a potentially important one, although its location at the extreme northeastern extremity of our field operations, together with the unlikeliness that the lake ice would break up enough for pontoon landings, constituted a logistical challenge. The total distance from base camp was beyond the capacity of the helicopter. (Figs. 48 and 49)

Fig. 48: Mount Longstaff and Remote Lake. Mount Longstaff (height 5,384 m) is the sharp peak on the skyline, left of centre. It was named after Tom Longstaff, who, as a member of J. M. Wordie’s expedition in the 1930s, initiated the earliest mountaineering in northeastern Baffin Island. Prior to that he was a leading member of the first reconnaissance expedition to Mount Everest from the north. This sighting was made during our exploration of the Remote Lake region on the outer coast of Baffin Island. (Photo: August 1966)

Fig. 49: Gibbs Fiord and Remote Lake. View toward the southwest along the length of Gibbs Fiord. The fiord wall reaches heights of 1,200 metres. Depth soundings of more than 1,000 metres make this gigantic feature significantly deeper than Arizona’s Grand Canyon. (Photo: August 1966).

We solved the issue by finding open water in one of the subsidiary branches of Gibbs Fiord, within Scott Inlet, where we used the Cessna to lay a fuel cache for David and CF-IFF. We were able to work out of a light tent camp between August 7 and August 11. Jane Philpot, with Penny Crompton as assistant, David, and I managed an intensive four days of fieldwork. We mapped the lateral moraines, surveyed the uplands, and collected four marine mollusc samples from different higher sea level stages alternating with several of the lateral moraines. This undertaking also provided a strong link with the submarine ridges extending far across the continental shelf that were later mapped by Olav, from CCGS d’Iberville.

An excursion into the realm of the Baffin Island wolf

Later in the season, Stan Wayman contacted us by radio from Fox-3. At the time, we were maintaining a temporary camp some forty kilometres farther east, so it was only a short hop to pick up the mail from Fox-3 and ferry Stan to join us. He spent several nights with us, including an all-night vigil close to a wolf denning site. He eventually obtained, among many other striking images, a fabulous closeup of the she-wolf’s eyes, subsequently published in Life. He proved a most convivial companion, showing great patience in offering advice on photography. His main “complaint” that we should increase by at least an order of magnitude the amount of film we were shooting—which was much more than we had available—although I think he had rather more extensive “home darkroom” resources at his disposal than we could even dream about.

Submarine geomorphology: Baffin Bay continental shelf and eastern fiords

Olav was able to work with CCGS Labrador and CCGS d’Iberville between September 5 and September 25. During this period, over three thousand nautical miles (as measured by the ships’ instruments) of soundings and submarine hydrographic tracks were taken between Sam Ford and McBeth fiords out to the edge of the continental shelf as well as along the length of four of the major fiords. This provided an extensive record of the sea-bottom topography relevant to a fuller interpretation of the land surveys. The fiords proved to be of classical shape (that is, eroded by thick glaciers) with their deepest parts coinciding with the highest mountain summits, giving evidence of considerable glacial overdeepening. This exceeded 900 metres for Sam Ford Fiord. As the surrounding heights rose to 1,700 metres above sea level, total relief was greater than 2,600 metres: a greater depth/height than the Grand Canyon.

The fiords also shallowed toward their mouths, with thresholds of less than two hundred metres, only to deepen again as great troughs extending across the continental shelf. The shelf varied between forty and sixty kilometres in width with trough depths exceeding eight hundred metres. The troughs themselves were bordered by low linear ridges, in some cases being conspicuous extensions of the lateral moraines that had been mapped on the outer coast. Detailed fiord cross-sections were also obtained using the main vessel’s motor launch. On the journey south, all the main fiords were observed to extend as great troughs across the continental shelf, including Ekalugad Fiord and all the way south to Broughton and Padloping islands.

End of the 1966 summer field season

With the exception of Olav’s September “at sea,” all the field personnel had returned to Ottawa by the last day of August. This sixth of the Baffin Island summer expeditions felt as though it had been a triumph, and Olav’s subsequent deep-sea excursion was more than icing on the cake. The 1966 expedition rounded off a level of interdepartmental, international, and interuniversity cooperation that never could have been envisaged in 1960. It also provided a record of solid field research and outstanding rapport among permanent staff, senior invited colleagues, students, aircrew, and DEW Line personnel. The relations with our renamed department’s new Waters Research Branch, which had originally caused me so much concern, were excellent; indeed, work in the field had proceeded as if no administrative restructuring had occurred. Above all, my sense of responsibility for so many exuberant students, male and female, while considerable, had proved exhilarating. There had been one or two inadvertent cold baths, but not even a sprained ankle had come to the attention of Olav or myself.