Climbing in Baffin Island

Baffin Island is recorded here not as a backdrop but as the logistical and emotional center of multiple small, uncompromising expeditions. The island’s scale and remoteness—part of Nunavut and one of the largest Arctic islands in Canada—shapes every film: long sea approaches or ski-ins, exposed granite walls, polar weather and the real possibility of being stranded. That reality is plain in Coconut Connection, where a team skis in across broken sea ice and ends up stuck in a valley for nearly two months, and in The Adventures of the Dodo, which follows a small sailboat crew working through ice and storms for unmapped walls.

Big-wall rock and alpine ice meet human-scale storytelling in several different registers. Arc'teryx Presents: Baffin focuses on Marc‑André Leclerc and Brette Harrington on Great Sail Peak and documents two first ascents on its walls, while The North Face Presents: Earthside tracks four climbers and skiers—Emily Harrington, Brette Harrington, Christina Lusti and Hilaree Nelson—on climbs and ski first descents, closing as a dedication to Nelson. The self-shot, slow-build Belgian tradition appears in Asgard Jamming, where Sean Villanueva O'Driscoll and a team walk huge approaches (hundreds of kilometres and many days out) before committing to a major wall.

Taken together, these five films show how Baffin’s remoteness recasts ordinary climbing tasks—placing protection, hauling, routefinding—into long, logistical endeavors where weather, isolation, and group dynamics are as central to the story as the moves on the rock.