Pangnirtung and the Uqqurmiut Centre

Inuit Hamlet On Pangnirtung Fiord, Baffin Island; Home Of The Uqqurmiut Centre For Arts And Crafts, The Only Arctic Tapestry Studio, And Gateway To Auyuittuq National Park · Pangnirtung, Nunavut

Pangnirtung sits on a fiord on Baffin Island with walls rising steeply on both sides, which is why people call it the Switzerland of the Arctic and why the wind that funnels down it cancels so many flights. About fifteen hundred people live here, and the reason to come - beyond the fiord itself, and beyond being the gateway to Auyuittuq - is that this small hamlet produces some of the best known art in the circumpolar world. The Uqqurmiut Centre houses a print shop where Inuit artists' drawings are worked into stonecuts and etchings for an annual collection that galleries in the south wait for, and a tapestry studio that is the only one of its kind in the Arctic, where weavers translate those same drawings into wool over months at the loom. Behind the hamlet, Mount Duval rises about seven hundred metres and gives you the whole fiord in one look.

Pangnirtung, Cumberland Sound, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Pangnirtung, Nunavut, Canada

The hamlet is a lived-in community with no gate and no admission. THE UQQURMIUT CENTRE FOR ARTS AND CRAFTS and the ANGMARLIK VISITOR CENTRE keep ordinary weekday working hours and can close at short notice in a community this size - GO EARLY IN YOUR STAY rather than saving them for the last day, and confirm the print shop is actually working if that is the draw. Access is by scheduled flight from Iqaluit; THERE IS NO ROAD. KATABATIC WINDS DOWN THE FIORD GROUND FLIGHTS REGULARLY in every season, so build spare days into the itinerary. Boat access to Kekerten and to Auyuittuq is summer only.

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