The geology of the Arctic regions is, of course, a study in itself beyond the scope of this book. It may be of interest, however, to note that the two great distinctive bodies of rock to be observed in a country like Baffin Land are the granite and the finer grained, darker, basic rock. The ironstone from there is very similar to that brought from India to be smelted in England. The graphite might be mistaken for coal, but for its formation under geological conditions which could not have given rise to the latter. The two pyrites occur in the rocks of all ages; the one is a brassy yellow, very hard mineral, and the other a brilliant black stone (magnetic pyrites) looking much like a mass of loosely formed crystals. Garnets are also formed in several kinds of rock, but are chiefly to be found in the schist. As a rule, these little gems are far too much broken and split by the [[36]]intense frost to be worth collecting. In the winter, the hardest rock is so split by the cold that every peculiarity of its composition can be clearly seen. The graphite can be chipped out with an axe and utilised very conveniently for writing.
The scenery everywhere is typical of the “Barrens,” the “Bad Lands of the North.” In winter, a featureless waste of snow, where in that dark season “come those wonderful nights of glittering stars and northern lights playing far and wide upon the icy deserts; or where the moon, here most melancholy, wanders on her silent way through scenes of desolation and death. In these regions the heavens count for more than elsewhere; they give colour and character, while the landscape, simple and unvarying, has no power to draw the eye.” (Nansen.) In summer, when the iron grip of ice is relaxed around the frozen coast, snow may disappear from the interminable wastes of rounded granite hills which are a feature of the interior. The effect of this endless succession of low bare elevations is one of “appalling desolation.” The long, high-pitched howl of the wolf, the ultimate note of the wilderness, falls occasionally upon the ear of the twilight camper. This, and the cry of the loon from the lakes, with the crowing bleat of the ptarmigan in the low scrub, are the chance evening sounds (of spring and summer) in the Barrens.
The country generally is mountainous and of a hilly and barren aspect. In some districts comparatively [[37]]level Laurentian areas occur, where immense herds of reindeer roam in the summer. At this season the ranges have a dark or nearly black appearance, owing to the growth of lichens upon them, but this sombre character is often relieved in valleys and on hill-sides by strips and patches of green, due to grasses and sedges in the lower bottoms, and a variety of flowering plants on sheltered slopes exposed to the sun.
The high interior of Baffin Land, lying just north of Cumberland Sound, is apparently all covered with ice, like the interior of Greenland. Around the margins of this ice cap the general elevation above the sea is about 5,000 feet, and it rises to about 8,000 feet in the central parts. Large portions of the northern interior are over 1,000 feet above the sea, so that vast regions of the country may be said to be truly mountainous.
There are no trees or shrubs of any kind in Baffin Land. Of Arctic flowers, a small yellow poppy seems to be the hardiest and most widespread. Even in those parts where desolation seems to reign supreme, this poppy (Papaver radicatum), and a tiny purple saxifrage (Saxifraga appositifolia) can generally be discerned. There are coarse grasses growing in scant patches, and immense tracts of reindeer moss, upon which the cariboo entirely subsist.
Unlike the sterile Antarctic, however, it is well known that the flora of Arctic lands is a feature of such importance that it has been the subject of an immense amount of expert investigation carried out [[38]]by very many eminent botanists from every country. Professor Bruce says it is quite impossible to enter into detail regarding arctic botany, largely on account of its sheer profusion. “No matter how far the explorer goes, no matter how desolate a region he visits, he is sure to come across one or more species of flowering plants.… Every arctic traveller is thoroughly familiar with scurvy grass, the sulphur coloured buttercup, the little bladder campion, several potentillas, the blaeberry, many saxifrages, the rock rose, the cotton grass and the arctic willow.” In Grinnell Land (far north of Baffin Land) the British Arctic Expedition of 1875 met with “luxuriant vegetation.” The presence or absence of the Arctic current along the shores of these countries seems to have much to do with the problems of vegetation. Baffin Land, bathed in its icy waters, is far more barren than Greenland, where it does not touch. Possibly Grinnell Land is immune from its influence. It is, nevertheless, quite possible for a dense plant life to flourish—under certain conditions of climate, altitude and situation—deep within the Arctic Circle, where even the tundra, a wilderness of snow in the winter, becomes an impassable fever-haunted, mosquito ridden, torrid, flower decked swamp in the summer.
But there is more than this in the botany of Baffin Land! The natural or geological history of the Arctic regions generally is that of the earth’s crust itself, and from this point of view the study of these [[39]]northern blossoms is more wonderful than that of its rocks.
The fossil plants of these ice-bound countries belong to the Miocene period, an epoch warmer than the present, which preceded the glacial age now triumphant there. The latitudes of Baffin Land were once covered by extensive forests representing fifty or sixty different species of arborescent trees, most of them with deciduous leaves, some three or four inches in diameter, the elm, pine, oak, maple, plane, and even some evergreens, showing an entirely different condition of seasons to that which now holds sway in the far, far north. The modern botany of the Arctics, comprising some 300 kinds of flowering plants, besides mosses, algae, lichens, fungi, is characteristic of the Scandinavian peninsula. Now, the Scandinavian flora is one of the oldest on the globe. It represents unique problems in distribution, from which the most tremendous scientific deductions have been drawn, such as those concerning a former disposition of terrestrial continents and oceans, and some concerning changes in the direction of the earth’s axis itself! All this is very far beyond the scope of any such account of Baffin Land as the present. Suffice it, nevertheless, to indicate the deep vistas of interest that lie behind the “appalling desolation” of its appearance to-day, and the limitations of its hyperborean native folk.
The reindeer moss is a very important asset of the country. It is a delicate grey-green in colour and [[40]]beautiful in form as well. It grows luxuriantly to about the height of six inches. When dry, it is brittle, and may be crumbled to powder in the hands; but when wet it is very much of the consistency of jelly, and very slippery. The reindeer live entirely upon it all the year round. In the winter, when it lies under a deep blanket of snow, to get at it the deer have to scrape their way down with their great splay hoofs. It sometimes happens that a season comes when a thaw may be followed by a sharp frost. In this case the surface of the snow is first melted and then quickly frozen, making a coating of ice over all the surface of the ground. To scrape this would cut the deers’ legs, so there is an exodus of the herd to other feeding places, and hunger even to famine and starvation may reign in the district they have deserted. Generally speaking, the herds keep to the high grounds and hills in the winter, because there the moss is more exposed and easier to come at. They move down to the coast at intervals, to lick the salt which comes up through the “sigjak,” i.e., ground ice, along the shore, when the tides rises and the water leaves pools behind it.
