What is Baffin Island?

Baffin Island is the fifth-largest island in the world (after Greenland, New Guinea, Borneo, and Madagascar) and the largest island in Canada. The island covers 507,451 square kilometres and stretches about 1,500 kilometres from Cape Dyer in the south to Bylot Island in the north. Baffin Island is part of Nunavut and contains most of the territory's population, including the capital Iqaluit on the southeast coast.

The island is named after the English explorer William Baffin, who explored Davis Strait and Baffin Bay in 1616 in search of the Northwest Passage. The Inuit call the island Qikiqtaaluk ('big island'). The island has been continuously inhabited by Inuit and earlier Dorset and Pre-Dorset cultures for at least 5,000 years. Eight communities are on Baffin Island today: Iqaluit, Pangnirtung, Pond Inlet, Clyde River, Qikiqtarjuaq, Hall Beach, Igloolik (technically on a separate small island), and Kimmirut. Total population is about 18,000.

Baffin Island's geography includes some of the most rugged Arctic terrain in Canada. The Baffin Mountains run along the northeastern coast and rise to 2,147 metres at Mount Odin and Mount Asgard (a famously sheer-walled granite peak that has been the setting for several BASE-jumping documentaries). Auyuittuq National Park (designated 1976, formal national park since 2001) protects 19,089 square kilometres of the Baffin Mountains and includes Penny Ice Cap. Sirmilik National Park, established in 2001, protects 22,200 square kilometres of northern Baffin and Bylot Islands. Baffin Bay between Baffin Island and Greenland is a major spring polynya (open-water area) and an important seabird and marine mammal habitat.

Baffin Island has been the centre of significant resource development. The Mary River iron ore mine (operated by Baffinland Iron Mines, opened in 2014) is the most northerly mine in Canada and produces about 6 million tonnes of high-grade iron ore a year for export through the Milne Inlet port. Climate change is rapidly affecting Baffin Island, with sea-ice extent declining about 10 per cent per decade since 1979, permafrost thaw affecting buildings, and changes to caribou, narwhal, beluga, and ringed seal populations all documented. The Tallurutiup Imanga National Marine Conservation Area, designated August 1, 2019, protects 108,000 square kilometres of marine waters around northern Baffin Island and is the largest protected area in Canada by area.