6 Stories from the 7 Continents: Canada's newest national park

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Canada's newest national park - Torngat Mountains

Canada's newest national park was actually created in July 2008 - pretty new regardless, and it happened to catch Teatree's attention from an article about a hiker who was mauled a week ago by a polar bear.

So, let's just give a bit of context - Canada has 42 national parks, and this one in Northern Labrador was established as Torngat Mountains National Park when the Nunavik Inuit Land Claims Agreement came into legal effect on July 10, 2008. If readers remember the May 16 2013 blog post, the Nunavik Territory's MP is the head of the Arctic Council.

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Torngat Mountains National Park in Northeast Canada. www.pc.gc.ca

The hiker (from Maine and on a Sierra Club trek) was pulled from his tent by the bear, but was rescued by his fellow hikers who lit flares to drive the bear off. The man was airlifted to a Montreal hospital initially in critical condition but is expected to recover. One article notes that "Visitors are urged to hire armed Inuit guards against polar bears, but Dyer's group didn't have one, CBC reports."

Teatree becomes aware of the Torngat Mountain National Park after reading story of polar bear attack. The graphic shows the park, and Montreal where the individual was taken to to recover ... from Kennebec Journal, Maine (PS - the reference to Newfoundland is a mystery)

Okay, besides the bear incident, the real discovery is the beauty of this park. Teatree admits that in his mind, northern Canada mainly consists of flat ground (crushed by glaciers in the past) which is boggy in the summer with clouds of bugs, followed by snow and ice in the winter. This park highlights his ignorance ...

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Is this retouched or photoshopped? from http://rebloggy.com/post/canada-torngat-mountains-national-park-newfoundland-and-labrador/36467336847

“ At the northern extremity of the Labrador coast, a range of high barren mountains with sharp precipices extending inland from the sea was known to traditional Inuit as the abode of the master spirit in their mythology. Their name for the region, Torngait meaning a place of spirits, derived from the presence of Torngarsoak who was believed to control the life of sea animals and took the form of a huge polar bear .” (This quote is from GSC Memoir 91: The Labrador Eskimo by Ernest W. Hawkes, an anthropologist who visited Labrador in 1914 with the Geological Survey of Canada.)

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