It’s one-fifth of Canada’s land mass, with less than 0.01 percent of its population. Nunavut’s tundra landscape is one of the most sparsely populated places in the world – for both plants and people.

Subtle is the best way to describe arctic flora – with the exception of six colourful weeks in July and August. This is when bright carpets of Purple Saxifrage, Chickweed, Arctic Poppy, Bluebells and Dwarf Fireweed transform the landscape. And it’s the first flower to bloom, the Purple Saxifrage, that the Inuit chose as their official Territorial Flower on May 1, 2000.

The Nunavummuit call this plant aupilaktunnguat, which means something like bold spots or blood spots in Inuktitut. This is because the earliest clumps of brilliant purple flowers are usually breaking through the still snow-covered ground in early July.

In Inuit culture, the purple saxifrage has a number of important uses. First, the sweet tasting flowers are a favorite treat when they appear in July. But, like candy, eating too many too fast can produce a belly ache. The plant can produce both a green and a gold dye. The dried stems and leaves had two common uses: to make tea, and as a supplement to store-bought tobacco.

Purple saxifrage also provides an important time-keeping function: when the plant blooms, the Inuit know that the caribou herds are calving out on the land.

All arctic plants face serious challenges: permafrost limits the depths they can set root, they freeze solid in winter and they have one of the shortest summer growing seasons on earth. Plus, arctic soil, what little there is, is very low in nitrogen because decomposition of organic matter is so slow. To top it off, parts of Nunavut get less precipitation than the Sahara Desert, and harsh winds carrying sand or ice are an almost constant corrosive.

Life in the polar desert demands some very refined survival skills. Adaptation is the name of the game here, and arctic plants have developed many clever ways to survive. The most obvious of these is size: this is the land of all things dwarf when it comes to plant life.

There are chemical differences as well. Almost all arctic plants contain a pigment called anthocyanin which absorbs solar radiation and allows photosynthesis at much lower than normal temperatures. Within a clump of purple saxifrage, the temperature can be as much a 20ºC higher than the air temperature above it thanks to anthocyanin.

Growing in closely together in dense mats also maximizes heat. Add on their wooly seed covers and hairy stems, and the purple saxifrage has made itself one of the most reliable plants in a very demanding part of the world.