Thoughts From a "Lost Canadian" About Sirmilik National Park

I have learned while most of Canada's National Parks are in places where you and your family are able to go and enjoy the beauty of nature and experiencing new things together, some of Canada's National Parks are places where very few people will be able to go due to how remote and "wild" these places are. Today I'm writing about one such place - Sirmilik National Park which in order to visit it you have to be, "entirely self-sufficient, requiring arrangements with licensed local outfitters." Even if this does not describe you (it does not describe me), learning about Sirmilik National Park will leave you in awe of such a magnificent place!

• Sirmilik National Park (meaning "place of glaciers" in Inuktitut) covers 22,200 square kilometers in Nunavut, Canada, very close to Greenland.
• It features massive glaciers, dramatic red-rock hoodoos, and icy waters teeming with narwhals and polar bears.
• Sirmilik is managed cooperatively by Parks Canada and the local Inuit People.
• The park is split into Bylot Island (a jagged, bird-filled mountain landscape), the Borden Peninsula (known for towering sandstone hoodoos), and Oliver Sound (a stunning fjord enclosed by high cliffs.)
• Sirmilik National Park is a vital habitat for polar bears, caribou, Arctic wolves, and whales (beluga and narwhal).
• The cliffs of Bylot Island serve as massive nesting sanctuaries for thousands of seabirds.
• Visitors can experience the famous "floe edge" (where ice meets open water) during spring, sea kayak along icebergs, or hike and ski through the open wilderness.
• There are no facilities or designated trails in the park. Travel is entirely self-sufficient, requiring arrangements with licensed local outfitters.
• The optimal season for boating, hiking, and wildlife viewing is August to mid-September, when the sun shines nearly 24 hours a day.
• Because of Sirmilik National Park's high-Arctic location and extreme terrain, thorough planning and experienced guides are required.
• Archaeological research indicates the earliest people on Baffin Island were from the Pre-Dorset and Dorset cultures dating back more than three thousand years from about 1700 B.C. to A.D.1000. The ancestors of these people are believed to have originated in the Bering Strait region of Alaska prior to migrating across the Canadian arctic and into Greenland, from west to east. 

You will find more information about Sirmilik National Park at this link.