Papa Bear's Torngat Mountains Web Site
The Torngat Mountains of Northern Labrador and Quebec
his page is dedicated to information on the Torngat Mountains, a remote and rugged area which lies at the north end of the Labrador / Quebec peninsula. This peninsula, with the Labrador Sea (Atlantic Ocean) on the east and Ungava Bay on the west, is the northernmost continental landmass on the east coast of Canada. North of this peninsula lies Baffin Island and the other Canadian Arctic Islands. The Torngats include the highest Canadian peaks east of the Rockies on the continental mainland. The word "Torngat" means "place of the spirits" or "place of the devil" in the Inuit language. The mountains were considered places of magic and mystery by the natives, whose livelihood kept them on the coast since the bounty of the sea fed and clothed them. They seldom ventured inland where the highest peaks were. The chief spirit or devil said to inhabit the area was known as "Torngak". The descriptions and lists on this page includes the Kaumajet Mountains (Kaumajet means "shining-top" in the Inuit language), which is a small range on the coast near Cape Mugford and the Kiglapait Mountains (which means "sierra" or "saw-tooth"), another coastal range near the village of Nain. My name is Richard Garland (also known in the hiking community as "Papa Bear") and I hope to explore this remote area in the near future, and I have begun to collect all the information I can on the area, including accessibility, terrain, mountains, rivers, etc. This page is a way for me to organize this information and to make it available to others who may be interested. The information on this page is from varied sources, largely from the internet, and is as accurate as I could make it. I would like to especially thank Hazen Russell, Jack Bennett, John Stix and Stephen Loutrel for many nuggets of information. They have all "been there, done that". There is no substitute for first hand information and I am grateful for their help in answering my many questions. Secondly I owe a great debt of gratitude to Greg Slayden who, together with myself (and working largely from rather poor on-line maps of the region) built the basic peak database that I relied on for my peak lists. I hope you find this page informative, and furthermore that you may be inspired to find your way up there some time in the future. Any and all information or questions you have are more than welcome. In particular, if you have any information or links to internet resources on this region that I have missed, please let me know.
Maps of the region
aps, maps don't we all just love maps! Well, I do. Unfortunately the number and quality of maps of this region is fairly limited. There are a few large scale maps available (like the one here) but they show little detail. The only on-line service for topographic maps that I am aware of is the government site Toporama. You can drill down on this site to 1:250,000 scale maps and from there to 1:50,000 maps. But these are very crude digitizations: there are contour lines but they are not labeled, there are very few feature names and worst, they are not to scale. They are scaled as if latitude and longitude were equal, degree for degree. At high latitudes (such as the Torngats) this gives an almost 2:1 distortion. Alas, there is nothing comperable to Topozone available, at least for northern Labrador and Quebec. Paper maps of the Torngats are available in the regular 1:50,000 Canadian NTS series. These maps were made from photometric images from the 1960s, and were produced in the mid 1970s. The contour interval is 100' and the Datum used is NAD27 Canada. They are available for the entire area and they suffice for most hiking and climbing purposes. One nice thing about the Canadian maps that I wish US maps had, is a UTM grid overlay. Every 1000m square is laid out with the appropriate UTM coordinates. This makes finding locations and UTM way points much easier than on a US map. See below for more on UTM notation. I found a good source for ordering copies to be Map Town, Ltd of Calgary. I ordered mine on-line and they arrived in less than a week. As a help in finding which map you may need, I have included a column for the NTS map number in the peak listings below on this page. The area where most of the most popular peaks are found (if you can call one or two groups visiting per year "popular") is NTS map #14L13. This includes the entire Selamiut range which includes Caubvick/d'Iberville, Torngasoak and Cirque, the 3 highest peaks of the Torngats. It covers an area from just south of the Nachvak Fiord south to the headwaters of the Koroc River and from the Tallek Arm on the west past Cirque Mountain on the east, and includes 9 of the 12 5000' peaks in the Torngats. If you are doing a highpointing trip for Caubvick/d'Iberville, landing on the Koroc River gravel flats, this one map is probably all you will need. It is my observation that the published NTS maps of the region tend to show sharp peaks and arêtes (knife edges) as being lower than they are. I would guess equipment used to scan the aerial photos in the 1960s did not have the required resolution to show the sharpest features. For example, although its hard to make out, the topographic map has the highest contour around the Caubvick/d'Iberville peak as 5200', 200' lower than it is. Latitude and Longitude vs. UTM notation: the locations of the peaks in the lists below is given in latitude and longitude (Datum: NAD27 Canada) giving degrees and decimal fractions thereof. Most atlases and gazatteers use latitude and longitude so this was thought to be the best choice. However, many users of GPS equipment prefer UTM coordinates, and in fact the NTS maps are very conveniently overlaid with UTM grid lines at 1000m intervals. UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) notation uses a system that includes a "zone" for a large area (which is "20 V" for this entire region) followed by a six digit number giving the number of meters east of the zone boundary (called "easting") and a seven digit number giving the number of meters north of the zone boundary (called "northing"). For example, the full UTM location of Mount Caubvick/Mont d'Iberville is 20V 459054 6527522. This is accutate to 1m (much more accurate than the map). You can use your GPS to make the conversion from Lat/Long to UTM, but I have found a very useful on-line conversion procedure which will translate between the two systems on Bivouac.com: UTM converter. To use the procedure, select "NAD27Canada" in the "Input:" box, paste in the latitude/longitude from one of the lists below (take out the space between Lat and Long) and click on "Convert". Voila! Abbreviated UTM notation: as an aid to quickly finding locations on the NTS maps, I will often use an "abbreviated" UTM notation in giving locations. The full UTM notation as explained above is rather cumbersome. I will use an abbreviated form using just 3 digits of easting (omitting the first digit and the last 2 digits) and 3 of northing (omitting the first 2 digits and the last 2 digits). The pair of numbers in this notation is accurate to 100 meters for both east/west and north/south (probably the accuracy you could read off the map without carefully measuring it with a ruler). Thus the Caubvick/d'Iberville location becomes 590275 (590 is the abbreviated easting, 275 is the abbreviated northing). Since the first two digits of each set of three are given as labels to the grid lines on all NTS maps, it would be very quick to find this on the 14L13 map - just find "59" along the bottom and "27" along the side, trace up and find the square on the map for 59,27, and then use the last digit of each coordinate to get an approximate postion within the square. The last digits are the number of tenths of the square over and up from the lower left corner. Thus Caubvick/dIbervill is on left side of the square (0 tenths) and half way up (5 tenths). This abbreviated UTM notation is sometimes called "military notation". A note on the names "Mont d'Iberville" and "Mount Caubvick". The border between Quebec and Labrador is defined as the watershed divide between rivers flowing east to the Atlantic and those flowing west into Ungava Bay. (For an historical account of this much disputed border Click here.) This peak, the highest point on this divide, was unnamed until 1971. The name "Mont d'Iberville" was given to this never-climbed mountain by the Quebec Toponym Commision in that year to honor Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, a 17th century French-Canadian naval hero (but no hero to the English) and was then thought to be the second highest in the region (after the 5232' peak to the north which was subsequently named Torngasoak). In 1977 the mountain was remeasured from the original photogrammetric images and found to be the highest mountain in the region (a distinction which first belonged to Cirque Mountain and then Torngasoak Mountain, both entirely within Labrador). In 1978 Chipeniuk et al. (see below under routes) discovered that there was a higher point some 10 meters north of the watershed divide and thus entirely within Labrador. They dubbed this higher peak "L1" for Labrador #1. (Several of the climbing reports from the late 1970s use "L1" as the name of this peak.) So with the highest point in the region now back in Labrador, the Newfoundland Geographic Names Board gave it the name "Mount Caubvick" in 1981 in honor of one of the Inuit who accompanied George Cartwright to England in 1772. So although most gazatteers refer to this as a single mountain with two alternate names, I have used the convention which is customary among climbers that d'Iberville (5419') is the high point on the divide (and the highest point in the province of Quebec) and Caubvick (5420') is the slightly higher peak entirely within Labrador (and the highest peak in the province of Newfoundland & Labrador). When I refer to the mountain as a whole, I will use the name "Caubvick/d'Iberville". When I refer to a specific peak, I will use the individual name.
Toporama maps: to get you oriented, and to give you an idea of what the on-line Toporama maps look like, here
are links to the 4 quads around the Nachvak Fiord, which I would consider the most interesting area with the highest
concentration of high prominence peaks:
Other resources from the internet: I have found a few map and geography related sites that may be of some value to you:
List of Peaks by Elevation
ost atlases or gazetteers of Canada list only a few of the peaks in the Torngats. But a careful study of the available maps reveals a vast number of peaks, most of then unnamed. The following list includes separate sections for peaks in the Torngats, the Kaumajet Mountains (a small coastal range around Cape Mugford about 40 miles south of Saglek Bay, considered the southern terminus of the Torngats) and the Kiglapait Mountains (a range encompassing the islands and mainland near the village of Nain, another 60 miles to the south). Peak names: All names listed are those officially recognized by the Canadian government except when listed in quotations e.g. "North Caubvick", which are not officially recognized but are in general use. When there is an unofficial name in use as well as an official name, the unofficial name is included in parentheses after the official name e.g. Mount Erhart ("Margaret Toth"). Unnamed peaks are designated by their elevation, e.g. Peak 5000. Since the table includes both the NTS Map number and the abbreviated UTM coordinates for each peak, it easy to find unnamed peaks (or any peak) on the appropriate maps and when thus qualified, e.g. "Peak 5000, Map 24P01, UTM 328519", gives a unique designation (since there may be several unnamed peaks with the same elevation). Since many of the peak names are not standardized in the available literature (gazatteers, climbing reports, etc.), and the notation for unnamed peaks varies, it is always best to identify a peak by its elevation and location (UTM or latitude/longitude) in addition to its name. Elevation and prominence units: All elevations and prominence values are given in feet since the original sources (the NTS maps) for this region use this unit exclusively. Although many atlases and other sources now use meters, we have not converted these data to that unit since the hiker and climber will likely be using the available maps. Elevations: For peaks with no spot elevation available (and most peaks fall into this category), the elevation of the highest contour surrounding the peak is used. Given that the contour intervals on the maps is in all cases 100', these elevation values will be multiples of 100' and the actual elevation may be up to 100' higher. A plus sign ("+") is added to the elevation value in the list to indicate this uncertainty. Prominence: For a discussion of prominence, check Aaron Maizlish's excellent site: Peaklist.org. In a nut shell, prominence measures how high a peak stands above its col or saddle to the next higher peak. Many enthusiasts favor prominence as a measure of the "quality" of a peak, and often they use the nick name "Finest" to categorize the most prominent peaks in a particular area. Eliminating low prominence peaks from a list, serves to "weed out" inconsequential bumps that surround prominent peaks. For a prominence map of the Torngats (created by Greg Slayden) showing the 2000+' prominent peaks and the divides (ridge lines) and saddles connecting them, click here: Torngats Prominence Map. Since prominence values depend on the height of the col to the next higher peak, and since these are known only from the next higher countour shown on the maps, the actual prominence may be up to 100' higher than listed (or up to 200' higher if the peak elevation is not a spot elevation). Prominence values calulated this way are called "clean prominence", and because of this uncertainty, they should be considered lower bounds for the actual prominence. UTM notation: see above, in the map section for an explanation of UTM and the abbreviated UTM notation used on this page to give locations. Locations and Datum: The locations were read from the digitized versions of the maps (available on Toporama) using GIS software. All location information (both UTM and latitude/longitude) use the NAD27 Canada datum, since this is used on all the maps. In point of fact, the difference bewtween these values and those given using WGS84 would not be significant given the accuracy of the maps: about 60m east/west and about 220m north/south. Latitude and Longitude are given in degrees and decimal fractions of a degree rather than degrees/minutes/seconds. It was thought this is generally more useful for GPS users or GIS software users. Obviously, hikers should not depend on the values given (or any value that can be read from the available maps) to find the exact location of any feature. Routes and first ascents: Where a route is documented in the literature or the first ascent of a peak is known, the year of the first ascent is listed in the "Routes" column and by clicking on the date, a description is displayed in a separate window, giving the members of the party, the date and any details of the ascent which are known, such as route and conditions. Listing criteria: My ultimate goal is to identify all peaks with a prominence of 500' or more (plus any named peaks with lower prominence). However, since the actual prominence of most peaks in this region is uncertain and may be up to 200' greater (see above), I would also hope to identify all peaks with between 300' and 500' of prominence. Given the high relief of the terrain in this area, this would be a daunting task. So I have applied some secondary criteria: start with peaks above 4000' and list all of those with 300' or greater prominence (and rank those with 500' or more of prominence). Next, for lower peaks, list those with 500' or more of prominence and work down. As a work in progress, I believe we are very close to the first group (the 4000s) and I am slowly working my way down through the 3000s. For lower peaks I have initially tried to find peaks with 1000'or more of prominence and have listed them. Interestingly, the 500' prominence cut-off used is close to 150m (=492'). British hill walkers refer to peaks with 150m or more of prominence as "Marilyns" and Marilyn bagging is very popular among many peak baggers, both on the British Isles and elsewhere. The List: The following list is built from the same data as the lists on Greg Slayden's site: Peakbagger.com (based on work by Greg and myself) and aside from minor formatting differences, should be identical to Greg's lists. By clicking on a peak name, a page of details from Greg's site is presented in a separate window.
Established Routes and First Ascents
The Selamiut Range and adjacent mountains
The Selamiut Range, lying between Nachvak Fiord on the North, The Koroc River on the South, The Tallek Arm and Palmer River on the west and the McCormick and Stecker Rivers on the east, is in many ways the heart of the Torngats. The greatest concentraion of high peaks lie here, the provincial boundary between Newfoundland & Labrador and Quebec cuts across it, and perhaps most importantly to climbers and hikers, it has ready access both from the north (Nachvak Fiord via boat or float plane) and from the south (Koroc River gravel flats via Twin Otters). Together with the significant mountains lying east of the McCormick River (including Cirque, Cladonia, Starshape, and Quartzite) and west of the Palmer River, this area is justifiably the number one destination for those who want to get the most out of their trip to the Torngats. The word "Selamiut" in the Inuit language means "Sky dwellers" which the natives used to refer to the northern lights (aurora borialis) which in legend were the dancing spirits of the dead.
The East: The McCormick River valley:
The South: The Koroc River valley:
The West: The Tallek Arm and the Palmer River valley:
So although most gazatteers refer to this as a single mountain with two alternate names, I have used the convention which is customary among climbers that d'Iberville (5419') is the high point on the divide (and the highest point in the province of Quebec) and Caubvick (5420') is the slightly higher peak entirely within Labrador (and the highest peak in the province of Newfoundland & Labrador). When I refer to the mountain as a whole, I will use the name "Caubvick/d'Iberville". When I refer to a specific peak, I will use the individual name.
The Region East of the McCormick River
The Region West of the Tallek Arm and the Palmer River
The Region North of Nachvak Fiord
Geography and Geology of the Torngats
This section is under construction. Any good references would be welcome.
http://sts.gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/clf/landscapes_newfoundland.asp
Group Expeditions and Tours
ve tried to assemble a representative collection of past expeditions and tours to this region. These include some treking tours, a canoe trip, and a hunting guide service. I have no idea of how reliable any of these groups are or how qualified their guides are. Just stuff I found on the web. Caveat emptor! If you find any other interesting listings for past or future guided tours, let me know and I'll include them here.
Group Expeditions
Torngat Private Search Expedition: Andrew Lavigne's excellent,
if sobering, account of the August 2004 search expedition to Mount Caubvick, organized by Roland Hanel and Jack Bennett,
the purpose of which was to locate the remains of Susan Barnes and Daniel Pauze, who were lost on Mount Caubvick
in August of 2003.
Tours
Canada North Outfitters: Guided 14
day tours starting at the headwaters of the Koroc, customized to the desires of the group. Other trips to the Canadian
arctic islands are offered.
Bibliography
General:
Mountaineering Journal Articles:
Some Classics:
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