Words by Brennan Lagasse
It might be the world’s hardest place to get to, which makes putting your skis on in this remote corner of the globe a lesson in gratitude.
I motion to my partners to be still. “I can’t hear them,” I say. I heard laughter a moment ago. As a group of six, we’d split into two teams of three to descend our line. But now, it’s eerily quiet. I can still see the tops of nearby nunataks in the distance and the bright blue ice of hanging seracs.
I make another turn to look more closely at where their tracks disappeared. Cautiously, I step toward what appears to be a cave. It’s such a wild setting as is, but now I’m staring down what looks like a dead end in the middle of a massive couloir. A bit perplexed but not necessarily fearful, I think to myself, they must have gotten through somehow. I step closer to the edge only to see that the cave is actually a hole. A fully formed but narrow passageway with tracks leading out the other side. This place, this moment, this line: It all feels unreal.
I still don’t hear our friends. Maybe they have already started skiing down.
I see the path ahead of me. In an instant, my mind focuses instinctually. It’s that feeling during an intense moment in the mountains when one’s consciousness is acutely present, hyper localized on the task at hand. I sidestep to the strip of snow that leads down through the crack below and assess. I pull out an ice ax and start working my way down, realizing there’s no way I am going to fit through this hole with my skis on. Just when I’m about to tell my two partners it goes through, but we’re going to need to switch to downclimbing, Vivian Bruchez, a French skier and mountain guide, and part of our seemingly missing other half, appears on the opposite side of the tunnel.
“Hello, my friend,” he says with his trademark smile and sense of ease. Motioning with his hands, he instructs me to employ a method of walking downhill by plunging my ski tails in the snow vertically. “Try it like this,” Bruchez says. “It is no problem.”
I have been skiing since the age of two, working in the ski world for many years as a guide, athlete, and journalist. Skiing has brought me to far-reaching places around the world and led me to experience a plethora of diverse conditions and nuanced adventures. But never have I contemplated descending a mountain in this style. I’d never even seen anyone do it. Without hesitation, I trust the guidance. As awkward as it feels at first, it ends up being one of the most memorable moments of the trip. As a lifelong skier, this simple, funky move in the far-out locale of Qikiqtaaluk—the Baffin Island region of Nunavut, Canada—immediately becomes one of my favorite all-time ski memories.
Free on the other end of the tunnel, through this magical hole in the mountain, rock walls rise for hundreds of feet on either side. It’s one of the most aesthetic, beautiful couloirs I’ve ever seen. A standout sliver of snow set amongst some of the most remarkable ski lines in the world. And right there in the middle of the line sits a perfect rock tunnel, just wide enough to fit through—skis on, with the right technique, of course.
Ski dreams come wide and varied. For the intrepid, adventure is as vast as you can imagine. If there is snow on a mountain somewhere, theoretically you can ski it, right? In a world of alpine beauty, Baffin is revered for a reason. Like many of the great global ski locales, the experience is everything. Many times, it takes another person’s story to reach the greater community for the dream seed to spread. Shortly after seeing photos and reading stories from friend and legendary ski mountaineer Andrew McLean in the early 2000s, I vowed to visit Baffin one day.
But how? Years would pass as several opportunities to make it fell through, while other adventures became real. It would seem after Antarctic, Himalayan, and other Arctic expeditions to places like Greenland and Svalbard, anything was possible. But Baffin proved to be consistently elusive. It felt too far away, too remote, too expensive to figure out how to make it happen.
When the stars finally aligned, I realized just how complicated it was to make this journey possible. It took a unique recipe of logistics, circumstances, partners, and timing to pull off. Nothing is ever quite as perfect as one might imagine, but sometimes it is.
“If you’d like to travel to one of the most inaccessible and inhospitable places on the planet, then, think to Baffin Island,” Bruchez told me. “It’s through traveling that we come to realize the beauty of the land and the people who live there.”
The fjords of Baffin are not accessible without local support from the Inuit community, namely residents of Kangiqtugaapik/Clyde River. Without the support of Andy Hainnu and his family, it would not have been possible for us. This respectful method of community connection is central to the dream of seeing and skiing some of the most inspiring terrain on Earth. Traveling to this corner of the planet, there are no other humans who know the land like its original stewards. As much as our crew learned from the land, we graciously learned from Andy and his community.
We came to ski the Polar Star Couloir, a true classic. The crux here is not that the line has only been skied a few times and comes into shape once every decade or so. The crux is getting here, and then doing the expedition in a meaningful way. When you see the Polar Star Couloir, it’s hard to wipe the smile away. It just keeps twisting, turning, and going. As the walls grow taller, its shape remains, a flawless emblem of other-worldly beauty.
Baffin might not be for you if couloir skiing is not of interest. Then again, there is other terrain to enjoy, and simply touring on the frozen sea ice is brilliant on its own. But the couloir skiing, for some, is the draw, with idyllic chutes stacked next to each other in every direction. Bootpacking is a primary mode of travel, approaches can be minimal depending on where basecamp is set. Wind and polar bears present some concern, as they did for us, but it wouldn’t be an Arctic expedition without some worrisome variable, would it?
In the end, a dream realized, expectations were not only met; they were shattered. Our group skied some of the finest lines of our lives, in an enchanted setting. Each day in isolation would be a top ski day of my life. Each day presented a new line to check out, another angle to relish in the view, and another pinch-me moment of gratitude.
The crux is getting here, and then doing the expedition in a meaningful way. When you see the Polar Star Couloir, it’s hard to wipe the smile away.
Brennan Lagasse is a Flylow athlete and gear tester, a ski guide, and an assistant professor in sustainable education at the University of Nevada, Reno, at Lake Tahoe. He is also an ambassador for Protect Our Winters and the Winter Wildlands Alliance. This story first appeared in the book, "Homegrown: Celebrating Flylow's independent culture and grassroots vibe since 2005," which is on sale now.