The Arctic Cordillera is a Level I terrestrial ecoregion of North America designated by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) in its North American Environmental Atlas. Located in northern Canada it is characterized by a vast, deeply dissected chain of mountain ranges extending along the northeastern flank of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago from Ellesmere Island to the northeasternmost part of the Labrador Peninsula in northern Labrador and northern Quebec, Canada. It spans most of the eastern coast of Nunavut with high glaciated peaks rising through ice fields and some of Canada's largest ice caps, including the Penny Ice Cap on Baffin Island.Ice Cap The Canadian Encyclopedia Retrieved on 2008-02-10 It is bounded to the east by Baffin Bay, Davis Strait and the Labrador Sea while its northern portion is bounded by the Arctic Ocean.
The geographic range is composed along the provinces of Labrador: including Eastern Baffin, Devon Island, Ellesmere, Bylot Island, the Torngat Mountains, and some parts of the Northeastern fringe. The landscape is dominated by massive polar icefields, alpine glaciers, inland fjords, and large bordering bodies of water, distinctive of many similar arctic regions in the world. Although the terrain is infamous for its unforgiving conditions, humans maintained an established population of 1000 people – 80% of which were Inuit. In addition, the landscape is 75% covered by ice or exposed bedrock, with a continuous permafrost that persists throughout the year, making plant and animal life somewhat scarce. The temperature of the Arctic Cordillera ranges from 6 °C in summer, down to −16 °C in winter. Vegetation is largely absent in this area due to permanent ice and snow.
Overview The range is mostly located in Nunavut but extends southeast into the northernmost tip of Labrador and northeastern Quebec. The system is divided into a series of ranges, with mountains reaching heights of more than . The highest is Barbeau Peak on Ellesmere Island at , which is the highest point in eastern North America. The system is also one of Canada's three mountain systems, the others being the Western Cordillera of Western CanadaArctic Cordillera Ecozone Retrieved on 2008-02-10 and the Canadian extension of the Appalachian Mountains into the Gaspé Peninsula and Atlantic Provinces.
The Arctic Cordillera is a narrow ecozone compared to other Canadian ecozones. It is one of fifteen ecozones identified in Canada—Northern Arctic, Southern Arctic, Taiga Cordillera, Taiga Plains, Taiga Shield, Hudson Plains, Boreal Cordillera, Boreal Plains, Boreal Shield, Prairies, Montane Cordillera, Pacific Maritime, Atlantic Maritime, and Mixedwood Plains. The majority of this ecozone borders the Northern Arctic, while the small segment within Labrador borders the Taiga Shield. While the Arctic Cordillera mountain system includes most of the Arctic islands and regions such as Bathurst Island, Cornwall Island, Amund Ringnes Island, Ellef Ringnes Island, Ellesmere Island, Baffin Island, Bylot Island and Labrador, the Arctic Cordillera Ecozone only covers Ellesmere Island, Baffin Island, Axel Heiberg Island, Bylot Island and Labrador.
Geography Regions The Arctic Cordillera is geographically diverse. Much of Ellesmere Island is covered by the Arctic Cordillera, making it the most mountainous in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. It is considered part of the Queen Elizabeth Islands, with Cape Columbia being the most northerly point of land in Canada. It encompasses an area of , making it the world's tenth largest island and Canada's third largest island. The first inhabitants of Ellesmere Island were small bands of Inuit drawn to the area for Peary caribou, muskox, and marine mammal hunting about 1000–2000 BC.
Axel Heiberg Island is one of the several members of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and the largest of the Sverdrup Islands, having an area of . It has been inhabited in the past by Inuit, but was uninhabited by the time it was named by Otto Sverdrup, who explored it around 1900. In 1959, scientists from McGill University explored Expedition Fiord in central Axel Heiberg Island. This resulted in the establishment of the McGill Arctic Research Station, constructed inland from Expedition Fjord in 1960.
Baffin Island is the largest island in Canada and the fifth largest in the world, with an area of .
Devon Island is the largest uninhabited island on Earth. With an area of , it is the second-largest of the Queen Elizabeth Islands, the 27th largest in the world and Canada's 6th largest. An outpost was established at Dundas Harbour in August 1924 as part of a government presence intended to curb foreign whaling and other activity.
Much of Bylot Island is covered by the Arctic Cordillera. At it is ranked 71st largest island in the world and Canada's 17th largest. While there are no permanent settlements on Bylot, Inuit from Pond Inlet regularly travel to it.
Protected areas
More than one-fifth of Ellesmere Island is protected as Quttinirpaaq National Park (formerly Ellesmere Island National Park), which includes seven fjords and a variety of glaciers, as well as Lake Hazen, the world's largest lake north of the Arctic Circle. Barbeau Peak, the highest mountain in Nunavut at , is located in the British Empire Range on Ellesmere Island. The most northern mountain range in the world, the Challenger Mountains, is located in the northwest region of the island. The northern lobe of the island is called Grant Land.
In July 2007, a study noted the disappearance of habitat for waterfowl, invertebrates, and algae on Ellesmere Island. According to John P. Smol of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and Marianne S. V. Douglas of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, warming conditions and evaporation have caused low-water-level changes in the chemistry of ponds and wetlands in the area. The researchers noted, "In the 1980s they often needed to wear hip waders to make their way to the ponds, while by 2006 the same areas were dry enough to burn.""Northern Canada Ponds Drying Up" . Environmental News Network.
Sirmilik National Park in northern Baffin Island harbours large populations of thick-billed murres, black-legged kittiwakes and greater snow geese. The park comprises three areas: Bylot Island, Oliver Sound and the Borden Peninsula.
Auyuittuq National Park, located on Baffin Island's Cumberland Peninsula, features the many terrains of Arctic wilderness such as fjords, glaciers, and ice fields. In Inuktitut—the language of Nunavut's Aboriginal people, Inuit— means "the land that never melts." Although was established in 1976 as a national park reserve, it was upgraded to a full national park in 2000. Well-known peaks in the park include Mount Asgard and Mount Thor, with a , 105° cliff face.
The Torngat Mountains National Park Reserve, located on the Labrador Peninsula, covers much of the southern end of the Arctic Cordillera. It protects many species of Arctic wildlife, such as caribou, polar bears, peregrine falcons and golden eagles. The park was established on January 22, 2005, making it the first national park to be created in Labrador.
Glaciers and ice caps
The drier northern section of the Arctic Cordillera is largely covered with ice caps while glaciers are more common at the more humid southern end. Large portions of Ellesmere Island are covered with glaciers and ice, with Manson Icefield and Sydkap in the south; Prince of Wales Icefield and Agassiz Ice Cap along the central-east side of the island; and substantial ice cover in Northern Ellesmere Island. The northwest coast of Ellesmere Island was covered by a massive, long ice shelf until the 20th century. The Ellesmere ice shelf reduced by 90 percent in the twentieth century due to global warming, leaving the separate Alfred Ernest, Ayles, Milne, Ward Hunt, and Markham Ice Shelves."Arctic Ice Shelf Broke Off Canadian Island" New York Times 30 December 2006 A 1986 survey of Canadian ice shelves found that , involving of ice, calved from the Milne and Ayles ice shelves between 1959 and 1974.Jeffries, Martin O. Ice Island Calvings and Ice Shelf Changes, Milne Ice Shelf and Ayles Ice Shelf, Ellesmere Island, N.W.T. . Arctic 39 (1) (March 1986) The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, the largest remaining section of thick (greater than ) landfast sea ice along the northern coastline of Ellesmere Island, lost of ice in a massive calving in 1961–1962. It further decreased by 27% in thickness (13 m, 43 ft) between 1967 and 1999.Vincent, W.F., J.A.E. Gibson, M.O. Jeffries. Ice-shelf collapse, climate change, and habitat loss in the Canadian high Arctic . Polar Record 37 (201): 133-142 (2001) The breakup of the Ellesmere ice shelves has continued in the 21st century: the Ward Ice Shelf experienced a major breakup during summer 2002; the Ayles Ice Shelf calved entirely on August 13, 2005—the largest break-off of the ice shelf in 25 years, it may pose a threat to the oil industry in the Beaufort Sea (the piece is ).
The Barnes icecap is found in the central part of the Baffin Island and has been in retreat since at least the early 1960s when the Geographical Branch of the then Department of Mines & Technical Surveys sent a three-man survey team to the area to measure isostatic rebound and cross-valley features of the Isortoq River.
Hydrology Nearly 75% of the land within this ecoregion is exposed bedrock or ice. The majority of the water is locked up in frozen ice and snow, therefore there are very few named rivers or other bodies of water within this region. The annual amount precipitation is about 200 mm, which usually falls down as snow or ice. Huge ice caps dominate the landscape, and they spawn large glaciers that are pushed down steep fjords and into the sea. When the temperature gets above freezing for an extended period time a little amount of runoff is created, which is generally under 200 mm annually.
Geology
The northern portion of the Arctic Cordillera was uplifted during the Innuitian orogeny when the North American Plate moved northward during the mid-Mesozoic. It contains igneous and metamorphic rocks, but for the most part is composed of sedimentary rocks. Mountains on Axel Heiberg Island consist mainly of long ridges of folded mid-Mesozoic and Palaeozoic strata with minor igneous intrusions.
The Arctic Cordillera is younger than the Appalachians, and so erosion has not had time to reduce it to rounded hills. The mountains are also barren because trees can neither survive the extremely cold winter temperatures, nor grow during the short summers. Vast areas are covered by permanent ice and snow. The Arctic Cordillera resembles the Appalachians in composition and contain similar types of minerals. The mineral resources have not been greatly exploited, however, because the region's remote location makes development too costly when cheaper alternatives exist further south.
Mountains on southeastern Ellesmere Island are principally made of granitic gneiss, magmatic, undifferentiated intrusive and volcanic rocks. They are typified by being highly eroded, with conspicuous deep vertical fissures and narrow ledges.
Precambrian rock is the major component of the bedrock.