Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1954-07-12
Buffin Lund Interior
Is q Weird Ice World
Largest Arctic IsIand
Is Still Mystery Outpost
By Thomas R. Henry

A weird ice world among mile-hirh
mountains is the interior of Bafin
Land, now being explored in q series
Of summer expeditions OF the Arctic
Institute of North America.
The Institute has just issued a re-
port on the last of these expeditions,
led by DR.. P. T. Baird. director Of the
organizations Montreal Office, on the
exploration of a strange region of hum
Knocked ice, hitherto hardly penetrated,
from which great ice rivers fiow
through high mountain passes into the
sea.
This is the great Penny ice cap. a
region embracing more than 1900
square miles and which. bounded on
two sides bye3 .000-foot-high rock walls
which form valley glacier troughs,
seems to the observer below like a
great island of ice in the sky.
Baffin Land is the largest of the Arc
tic islands north of Canada. Although
first discovered nearly 400 years ago
the completely uninhabited interior.
dangerous of access from any point on
the shore, still is almost complete
blank. Its surface features are known
chiefly from air photos. There is one
human settlement in the whole country,
Pangnirtung, which is a combined
mounted police and Hudson Bay Co.
post from which all expeditions into
the interior must set out.
3,OOO-FoOt Rock Walls.
Most remarkable features reported
by DR.. Baird are the two deep, broad
valleys with the 3,000-foot rock walls,
partly filled with ice-domed lakes, their
tops Surmounted by the 300-foot- high
ice walls of the mountain icecape. The
region itself is vast extent OF high
ice domes-practically low ice noun
tains. separated by broad valleys of ice
which spill thick ice into more than a
dozen major valley glaciers. One of
these Is more than 20 miles long and
two miles wide, making it one of the
major ice rivers in the eastern Arctic.
The expeditions base camp was set
up on the highest of these towering ice
domeS, nearly 1000 feet above sea level.
From here Investigations were carried
out on the geology. biology and mete-
orology of the countryside. Among the
phenomena studied was that of breed
ing colony of the snowy owl whose
behavior from egg laying to the first
flights Of the young were observed.
This was the first invasion of this
domain of the white owls who pre-
sumably have been in undisputed pos
session for milleniums. With the hui
man invasion of their sanctuary, the
expedition biologist reports, the birds
showed aggressive behavior" but when
they found they could not scare the
visitors away their action became
confused.
Bird Life Is Abundant.
Bird life in the region is fairly album
dant but mammals were very rare.
There were traces Of Arctic foxes and
weasels and single displaced caribou
was seen. Several Arctic char were
taken in small stream and lake
north of the biologists camp. Other
wise animal life was confined largely
to the ubiquitous insects which are
the curse of the summer Arctic and
to spiders.
The plant life in two of the great
river valleys gave evidence that Baffln
Land must have enjoyed considerably
warmer period at some time in the
distant past. These valleys showed
"relict vegetation" normally belonging
to warmer land, which has survived
out Of its due time in this inhospitable
land. One river valley. however, showed
an invading vegetation from the south
and, it was calculated, the invasion
could hardly have started more than
$50 years ago.
From the base camp in the middle
of the great icecap the highest noun
tains of Baffin Land were accessible.
They lowered all around this LAND Of
white birds" Some peaks wore white
crowns of ice. Eight of these peaks
were climbed, including Tete Blanche.
more than 1000 feet high. the highest
in this part of the Baf1n Land
mountains.