Auyuittuq National Park

Auyuittuq National Park protects a stretch of Arctic wilderness on the Cumberland Peninsula of Baffin Island, in Canada's territory of Nunavut, covering about 21,470 square kilometers of fjords, glaciers and ice fields, including the roughly 6,000 square kilometer Penny Ice Cap. Its Inuktitut name means the land that never melts. The park was created in 1972 as Baffin Island National Park, renamed in 1976, and upgraded from a national park reserve to full national park status in 2000. It contains dramatic peaks, including Mount Thor with its sheer 1,250 meter face and Mount Asgard, and the popular Akshayuk Pass backpacking route, where winds can reach 175 kilometers per hour. Bordered on three sides by the sea, the park's waters support beluga whales, narwhals and polar bears, and its remoteness keeps visitor numbers extremely low, with only 256 recorded in 2022 to 2023.