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| UKKUSIKSALIK NATIONAL
PARK NUNAVUT © Photos
& Text Parks Canada |
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| Ukkusiksalik National Park is located just west of the community of Repulse Bay and the Arctic Circle.
The park surrounds Wager Bay, a 100 km long saltwater inlet on the northwest coast of Hudson Bay in Nunavut.
Declared a national park on August 23, 2003, Ukkusiksalik became
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| Canada’s 41st national
park. Named after the soapstone found within its
boundaries,
the park includes 20
500 km2 of eskers, mudflats, cliffs, rolling tundra
banks and unique coastal regions. While Inuit
do hunt in the region, the
parkland is
uninhabited. Inuit
had lived in the area from 1000 AD through to the 1960s, and
the Hudson’s Bay Company had a trading post there from
1925-1947. Over 500 archaeological sites have been identified
in the park, including such features as fox traps, tent rings,
and food caches. The park protects a representative sample of
the Central Tundra Natural Region. The well-attended,
public, early-morning signing ceremony for Canada's newest
national park within Parks Canada's family of national parks,
national historic sites and marine conservation areas, which
included the Prime Minister, Nunavut's premier and officials
of the Kivalliq Inuit Association, took place in Iqaluit on August 23rd, 2003. It was followed on the same day by a heart
felt and enthusiastic community celebration in Repulse Bay,
which welcomed representatives from the communities associated
with this new park - Baker Lake, Chesterfield Inlet, Coral
Harbour and Rankin Inlet as well as dignitaries from
throughout the north and much of Canada. Before Ukkusiksalik
becomes fully recognized under the National Parks Act, various
activities including final boundary setting and parliamentary
recognition must take place. Still ahead, is appointing the
advisory management committee, which is formed from members
appointed by the Government of Canada and the Kivalliq Inuit
Association and developing a management plan through public
consultation. Ukkusiksalik is named for the carving stone
found within its boundaries and is located on the west coast
of Hudson Bay. It is 20,500 square kilometres in size and
contains the inland sea of Wager Bay and land surrounding it.
Each national park represents at least one of the 39 natural
regions of Canada and Ukkusiksalik represents the Central
Tundra Natural Region. The park features a rift valley, eskers
and glacial features, lowlands, river valleys, rock desert,
rubble-strewn uplands as well as tidal flats and river mouths
that provide staging areas for migrating shorebirds and
waterfowl. Wager Bay has 8 metre tides and one of the most
interesting features in the park is the reversing falls that
are created by those tides, where Wager Bay meets Brown Lake.
Within the various marine and terrestrial habitats are a wide
variety of plants and wildlife, including: wildflowers, sedges
and lichen, polar bear, beluga, ringed and bearded seal, the
occasional walrus and narwhal, Peregrine and gyrfalcon,
caribou, wolf, musk ox, Arctic Hare and Arctic Ground
Squirrel. Cultural resources within Ukkusiksalik are amazingly
numerous with over 500 archaeological sites already located.
Pre-Dorset, Dorset and Thule occupations along with cultural
remains from the Hudson Bay Company are part of the human
story told by Inukshuk, caches, fox traps,
tent rings and an abandoned HBC post. |
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