VIRGIN POWDER Nowhere Is More Untouched Than Baffin Island, a Remote Area of Northern Canada

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ULTRASKI VIRGIN POWDER Nowhere is more untouched than Baffin Island, a remote area of northern Canada. Here, you can be the first to map hundreds of uncharted ski runs – and even name them

By Will ROBSON Photographs by Nansen WEBER

BLADE RUNNERS Skiers and their guides are dropped directly on to the runs from a helicopter

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I listen intently to the cabin crew’s brief- ing as we prepare to fy further north from Iqaluit, the capital of Bafn Island in Nunavut territory, on this last leg of my trip deep into the Canadian High Arctic. It’s mid-April, and with winter slowly loosening its grip on the region, I’m due to join the frst-ever group to heli-ski the interior of Bafn’s northeastern Qikiqtaaluk region, an opportunity made possible by Canada’s seasoned high-end Arctic adventure company, Weber Arctic. The briefng on this First Air ATR 42-300 aircraft is blunt: ‘For those in emergency exit seats, if at any point you feel your life is in danger, get out and start running.’ An hour later, 25,000ft above Bafn – where crazy paving ice floes surround the world’s tallest and oldest granite clifs, themselves casting mile-long shad- ows over serpentine glaciers and frozen fords – it occurs to me that if the unthinkable indeed happens, where exactly would I run to, and how might my life be any less endangered? Baffin is vast. At almost 196,000 square miles, it’s the world’s ffth largest island (with a population of just 11,000). Almost none of the mountains below have names, let alone been scaled by humans. As we fy I realise why, until now, no one has ever thought to set up a heli-skiing operation here. The distances are immense, the logistics complex and the environment seriously harsh. Clyde River airport bursts into life when we land, with two men tootling over in a truck to unload freight. Supplies are more important than passengers’ bags – the daily fight is the only way to reach this settlement of 900 Inuit during the eight months of the year that the sea ice clogs Patricia Bay. About 300ft from us stands the only other aircraft here: a very small AS350 helicopter, its engine cowling blanketed and its rotors tied down. It has one engine, one pilot and one engineer, and is the only helicopter for 1,000 miles. This is what we’ll rely upon when heli-skiing. Everyone else seems relaxed about this, so I try not to focus on what could go wrong. Dressed in wolverine fur-trimmed parkas, the Weber Arctic crew greet us warmly and I get the sense we’re in good hands. They fre up the engines of skidoos and 4X4s to scoot us the mile or so into Clyde River. The former whaling station is just a narrow swathe of prefab, heavily insulated buildings, the remotest of outposts. As the frst heli-ski guests to be hosted by Weber Arc- tic, we’re excited to be here – and we’re a source of inter- est for the locals too. They don’t get many visitors, so the community comes to check us out when we gather for a briefng in Clyde River’s Naujaaraaluit hotel. It’s unlikely they’ll ever become blasé about future arrivals. The heli-ski season will run for only fve weeks, with each of Weber Arctic’s week-long itineraries accepting a maximum of just eight clients. Coming from Australia, Germany, the United States and Britain, we’ve taken every room and the compact kitchen is all ours. Josée Weber – French Canadian, THRILL OF IT ALL As the frst-ever group matriarch, polar explorer and chef for the week – has to heli-ski the interior had everything fown in, apart from Arctic char. A log of Bafn’s northeastern pile of these locally caught fsh have been conveniently Qikiqtaaluk region, the frozen, en plein air. The imports include legs of lamb skiers had the honour of GPS marking and naming and hams; Canadian wines from the Okanagan Valley; their runs for future guests and a small barrel of maple syrup from the Weber’s

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stand of 2,000 trees near Ottawa. We may be in Ice Station Zebra but we’ll be eating very well. A former member of Canada’s national cross-country ski squad and the youngest person ever to trek to the North Pole, Tessum Weber runs the show, and his brief- ing is extensive. Safety is paramount: he reminds us that it is a new venture for them too, so we all need to be sharp. He and his team have recced the area by skidoo, but never by helicopter. They barely scratched the sur- face of the interior, so we’ll be skiing and charting terra incognita. The other guests don’t look fazed – the oppo- site, in fact. They’ve heli-skied in Greenland and Alaska, and there’s no disguising that being the frst to ski here is a thrilling prospect. It’s obvious they consider this the sort of adventure that makes being wealthy worthwhile. We meet Patrice, our pilot, also a stunt fier in Holly- wood; and Laura and Drew, our guides. All have worked in the world’s snowiest and most remote corners, and they also can’t wait to get out there. Drew came here last year on a recce; climbing, skiing and naming a 2,000ft crack in a huge granite rock buttress. The weather the next day is typical for the time of year: a settled high-pressure zone with no precipitation. PISTE OF THE ACTION The sky is clear and the wind minimal. Perfect for fying. Clockwise from above: a snowboarder descends The Weber team are expert at making an extreme a peak; a polar bear print environment seem unthreatening, if not entirely in the snow; preparing benign. They are so at ease in the Arctic that, despite for a dog sled ride along the remote and exposed nature of what we’re about to Patricia Bay do, no one displays any jitters as we take of and head into the lower coastal hills to fnd our frst warm-up run. After flying for 10 minutes, Patrice drops us on a narrow col about 1,650ft above sea level. Beneath it

The pre-fight briefng is blunt:

‘If at any point you feel your life is in danger, get out and run’

is a gently sloped glacier and more than a mile of easy fnest ambush predator that could kill us. Guides Laura skiing. At the top, the slope is wind-blown and icy, but and Drew scope out likely runs, usually on glaciers, as we descend, a six-inch layer of light, dry powder has looking for where the ice falls over steeper sections of us smiling all the way to the tiny white helicopter, now rock, and opens up into deadly crevasses. Our route glinting below us in the sunshine. down glaciers must be carefully judged and we follow Laura reminds us that, as we mark with GPS each the guides’ lines closely. run we fnd for future guests, we have the honour of About 30 miles to the north, in the Sam Ford Fiord naming them. The three Australians with me dub this region, Base jumpers drawn to the 4,000ft granite clifs ‘First Choice’. We christen others Ayrdrop, Serenity and have disappeared into crevasses, never to be seen again. Ecstasy. I call one foreboding encounter The Citadel. It’s hard to grasp the scale of the landscape without Our fuel is running low so we head for ‘ford camp’, man-made or relatable objects such as trees. I stand of some 40 miles away from Clyde River, a rest and re-fuel- from the group to take pictures of them on the other side ling camp set up by Weber Arctic to maximise useful fy- of the glacier: they are so small as they wind their way ing time. As we touch down in a swirling cloud of snow, down that only the sinewy shadow of their ski tracks we’re greeted by Alex Deschenes Philion. He has been shows me where they are. here for two days, setting up tents, and greets us with Later, as we wait for our heli-pick-up, alongside cofee and Josée-made slices of cake. Next to the camp a polar-bear track down the middle of a glacier we can stove is his 12-gauge shotgun, loaded for polar bear. barely see the other side of, our jocularity dies away and At this time of year, the bears are heading from the we stand contemplating this silent, epic wilderness. interior out to the edge of the ice foe, some 40 miles One morning, the mist fails to burn of quickly and

ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHS BY WILL ROBSON. ILLUSTRATION: SERGE BLOCH SERGE ILLUSTRATION: WILL ROBSON. BY PHOTOGRAPHS ADDITIONAL ofshore from Clyde River, but it’s not just the world’s delays our fying. The Webers fx up a dog-sled ride

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ICE PACK With Bafn Island’s particular conditions, bringing the correct equipment is critical

1 Lowe Alpine AT wheelie 120L, £210 (cotswoldoutdoor.com) 2 Arc’teryx Ceres SV parka, £720 (arcteryx.com) 3 Fischer Ranger 108 Ti skis (provided by Weber Arctic) 4 Fjällraven Barents parka, £460 (fallraven.co.uk) 5 Bafn ‘Control Max’ boots, rated to -70C, CDN$259.99 (bafn.com). 6 Arc’teryx Alpha SV bib pants, £570 (arcteryx.com) 7 Scarpa Freedom SL ski boots, £500 (scarpa.co.uk)

along Patricia Bay, and we learn the hard way how to IN PERSPECTIVE ESSENTIALS ‘layer-up’ properly in the Arctic. The Inuit are partial The almost imperceptible outline subsistence hunters and, while the local store brings The trip of a lone skier and A visit to Bafin Island costs Can$21,000 modern convenience foods north, they’re expensive. An ski track helps you (£12,570) for seven days, including Inuit youngster called Lester tells me that his favourite to grasp the scale of fights to and from Ottawa, via Iqaluit, food is raw seal brain and eyeball. I chew contentedly on the vast landscape to Clyde River. For booking details, some muktuk, a cube of raw Narwhal skin and blubber, itinerary and trip details – including kit list – visit weberarctic.com. while watching locals ‘drum dance’ and ‘throat sing’. Over the week, we map 32 heli-ski runs. The guides Getting there and Patrice say there are hundreds more for future 6 Air Canada (aircanada.com) has daily guests to be the frst to ski. But for me, being here is fights from London Heathrow to Ottawa, with return fares from £621 (economy) about so much more than skiing. and from £2,436 (business). Back in the hotel on our last night, the excellent Okanagan red slips down easily, and the conversation Where to stay in Ottawa is interspersed with the roaring laughter of people who Fairmont Château Laurier (fairmont.com/laurier-ottawa) know how precious this experience is. Bafn’s soaring from £136 per night. 3,000ft granite clifs have been frozen in time and ice 7 for over three billion years. Their scale and deep Arctic isolation allowed one of the world’s most majestic land- scapes to remain almost completely untouched and unseen – what a privilege to be the frst among them.