Perched at the northernmost tip of North America, Quttinirpaaq National Park is stripped to the bone: Elemental and stark, its dramatically massive mountains, glaciers, fjords, rivers, and horizons compose a prodigious land.

The landscape of the park differs radically form any in the south. The Inuit name for the place means top of the world. Much of the park’s acreage is polar desert; some areas receive less annual precipitation than the Sahara Desert.

Empty though it seems, there is life on this land. Glacier meltwater and the lake itself feed the sedges, willows, and lichens that sustain Ellesmere Island’s wild creatures.