Protecting a pristine part of the eastern Arctic, Auyuittuq National Park Reserve, is located on Baffin Island’s Cumberland Peninsula, about 2400 kilometres from Montreal. Its 19 707 square kilometres lies almost entirely within the Arctic Circle and, except for the 6000 square kilometre Penny Ice Cap, the park’s landscape has been entirely glacier-formed. The harsh variable climate, only briefly moderated during the long days of summer, sustains a very limited number of plant and animal species. Auyuittuq, ‘the land that never melts’, was set aside in 1972; in 1993, an agreement was made between the government and the Inuit to negotiate the formal establishment of the reserve to a national park. Since the area has been inhabited and influenced by a number of different peoples, the park possesses abundant cultural resources that enrich our awareness of its complex human history.