The Torngat Mountains

Torngat means the place of spirits in Inuktitut, and this park at the very northern end of Labrador is Inuit land, established in 2005 and run with Inuit at every level: the guides, the polar bear monitors who accompany every group ashore, the cooks and the elders in residence at the base camp. The mountains rise to over sixteen hundred metres, the highest in mainland Canada east of the Rockies, with fjords cut deep into them and glaciers still hanging in the cirques. There are no roads, no trails and no villages inside the park. Visitors fly in for a stay at a seasonal camp behind an electric fence, and travel out by boat or helicopter each day.

The landscape

• The fjords - Saglek, Nachvak and Ramah cut deep into the mountains.
• Polar bears - regularly seen along the coast, watched from a safe distance.
• Inuit guiding - elders, bear monitors and guides from Nunatsiavut and Nunavik.
• Ramah chert - the translucent stone quarried here and traded for millennia.

When to go

July to early September is the entire season, when the base camp is open and the sea ice has gone. Even then the weather is raw and fog can ground flights for days. Trips are booked a year ahead and numbers are very small.

Good to know

This is one of the most expensive trips in Canada: charter flights plus a base camp package run into many thousands, and there is no budget version. Polar bears are a genuine hazard and no one goes ashore without an armed monitor. Fog cancels flights and boat days routinely. Anyone hoping to hike independently should understand there are no trails, no rescue and no permission to travel without guides.

Nearby

Nain is the northernmost community in Labrador; Kuujjuaq in Nunavik is the other air gateway.

Key facts