Road planned into future Nunavik park

Unique scenery and wildlife characterize the proposed Tursujuq provincial park project near Umiujaq, where a 10-kilometre road will be built from the community to the Richmond Gulf this summer. (FILE PHOTO)

KUUJJUAQ — Nunavik’s first provincial park on the Hudson Bay coast park hasn’t been officially established yet, but an interim agreement has already paved the way for construction of a road into the park this summer.

The Kativik Regional Government has given its the go-ahead to work this coming summer at the future Parc national Tursujaq.

The work includes a new 10-kilometre road between the community of Umiujaq and the Richmond Gulf, a body of water attached to Hudson Bay, known as Tasiujaq in Inuttitut.

Of the $7 million earmarked for park infrastructure over the next five years, about $1.1 million would go towards the construction of this road, partially started using municipal money.

The provincial department of sustainable development, environment and parks plans to propose the park’s creation before the end of 2011, said Michael Barrett, assistant director of the KRG’s renewable resources, environment and land use department at a recent meeting of regional councillors in Kuujjuaq.

“We’re about six months off from creation,” Barrett said. “We’d like to go ahead with the construction of the road down to Tasuijaq, and this would become a part of the park infrastructure.”

Tursujuq park covers about 26,900 square kilometres in the Richmond Gulf and Clearwater Lake [Qasigialik] region between Umiujaq and Kuujjuaraapik.

But many have criticized its boundaries because they do not include the entire watershed of the Nastapoka River.

The borders include only part of the headwaters of Nastapoka River where Quebec’s power corporation, Hydro-Québec, has said it may someday build a hydroelectric project.

During public hearings, environmental groups and people in the community argued the park’s boundaries should be expanded: the Nastapoka River has a population of landlocked salmon, the only salmon to be found on eastern Hudson Bay.

As well, during the summer, belugas gather in the river’s estuary.

Tursujuq should also include the entire chain of inland lakes near the river, called Lacs des Loups Marins or seal lakes, they said, because these are also home to a population of fresh water seals.

The seals, currently under consideration as a species of risk, are believed to be the only harbour seals in the world that live year-round in fresh water.