Barnes Ice Cap
| Barnes Ice Cap | |
|---|---|
 Sentinel-2 image (2019) | |
  Location in Nunavut, Canada | |
| Type | Ice cap |
| Location | Baffin Island |
| Coordinates | 70°00′N 73°30′W / 70.000°N 73.500°W |
The Barnes Ice Cap is an ice cap located in central Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada.
Geography
It covers close to 6,000 km2 (2,300 sq mi) in the area of the Baffin Mountains. It has been thinning due to regional warming.[1] Between 2004 and 2006, the ice cap was thinning at a rate of 1 m (3 ft 3 in) per year.
The ice cap contains Canada's oldest ice, some of it being over 20,000 years old.
Exploration
A team from Laramie, Wyoming made the first bicycle traverse of the Barnes Ice Cap in 1995.[5] The team was sponsored by the Wyoming Alpine Club and included brothers Mike and Dan Moe — some of the first people to complete the Continental Divide mountain biking route from Canada to Mexico — along with Sharon Kava and Brad Humphrey.
After crossing the ice cap, the team abandoned their bikes and sleds at Lat: 70 degrees 31’ 43” N. Longitude 73 degrees 18’ 42” W. on Tuesday August 22, 1995, to expedite their travel over boulder fields to Baffin Bay. They intended for the bikes to be picked up later. All members of the 1995 party died of hypothermia after an aluminum boat captained by Innumariik guide Jushua Ilauq of Clyde River was capsized by a breaching bowhead whale. Ilauq alone survived due to wearing a cold-weather survival suit, and lived until 2025.[6] [7]
In 2009 geologist Kurt Refsnider stumbled upon the bikes by chance.[8] The story of the expedition was chronicled by a childhood friend of Mike Moe, writer Mark Jenkins in Outside magazine in 2006 and 2022. [9][10]
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See also
References
- ^ "Canada's oldest ice formation melting at alarming rate, scientists say" (Press release). CanWest News Service. Jan 9, 2008. Archived from the original on 2011-05-11. Retrieved Jan 6, 2010.
- ^ "Barnes Ice Cap, Baffin Island, Canada". NASA Earth Observatory. 2010-10-04. Retrieved 2024-11-05.
A remnant of the Laurentide Ice Sheet that sprawled over North America during the Pleistocene Age, the Barnes Ice Cap is a bowling-pin-shaped glacier on Canada's Baffin Island.
- ^ NRCan - Generator Lake
- ^ https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/exploration-survival/baffin-bay-tragedy-mike-moe-wyoming-alpine-club/
- ^ https://isaruit.ca/isaruit-staff/
- ^ https://isaruit.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/MEMORIALCARD-Jushua-Illauq.pdf
- ^ http://krefs.blogspot.com/2010/12/coincidental-divide.html
- ^ https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/exploration-survival/baffin-bay-tragedy-mike-moe-wyoming-alpine-club/
- ^ https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/climbing/above-and-beyond/
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