Kangiqsujuaq’s history can boost tourism: local development corp

Students help excavate the site of a semi-subterranean house at Qarmait nearby the community of Kangiqsujuaq last summer. Qarmait is one of two sites that the local landholding corporation wants to develop as a tourist attraction. (PHOTO/AVATAQ)

The Aivirtuuq peninsula near the community of Kangiqsujuaq is home to many archeological sites, including Saunitarlik or the “river of bones,” remnants of a 19th century winter camp. Some say that’s where the drama between Inuit and shipwrecked sailors, whicg was portrayed in the book and film “White Dawn,” played out. (PHOTO COURTESY OF AVATAQ)

Mineral, energy and tourism development is the key that will “open up” northern Quebec, Quebec finance minister Raymond Bachand said earlier this month when he tabled his government’s budget, with $1.6 billion earmarked for its Plan Nord scheme.

But the community of Kangiqsujuaq on Nunavik’s Hudson Strait isn’t waiting for the final details on how Plan Nord will help increase tourism in the region.

The Nanuturlik landholding corporation, which manages Inuit lands and compensation money on behalf of Kanigiqsujuaq’s beneficiaries, already has plans to develop cultural tourism around Wakeham Bay.

These will build on the wealth of archeological sites around Kangiqsujuaq, said Brian Urquhart, Nanurturlik’s economic development and tourism coordinator.

Kangiqsujuaq already has a spectacular fiord, with mountain backdrop and the nearby Pingualuit provincial park working for it.

Now, the landholding corporation has identified two more sites that it hopes to promote, Urquhart said.

There’s Qarmait, a point of land only a few kilometres west of Kangiqsujuaq, where people can see tent rings, caches and houses dating back 1,500 to 800 years.

And then there’s the Aivirtuuq peninsula, about 40 kilometres southeast of Kangiqsujuaq, home to earlier Inuit settlements.

The two sites may have a global appeal, but the plan is to welcome local visitors first, Urquhart said.

Cultural tourism is a way “to create interest within the community to its own history,” he said.

“Next, we’ll market this history to tourists both in the South and abroad.”

The Avirtuuq peninsula is home to several early Inuit settlements, including Saunitarlik or the “river of bones” – where the remnants of a 19th century winter camp can still be seen in a shallow valley.

Thousands of walrus, whale and caribou bones accumulated at Saunitarlik.

And, there, archeologists from Nunavik’s Avataq Cultural Institute also found a pistol barrel from the early 1800s, the kind typically carried by ship’s officers at the time.

Some maintain Saunitarlik was where the drama, related by James Houston in his 1971 book, “The White Dawn: an Eskimo Saga” and in the 1974 film “White Dawn,” actually took place.

“White Dawn,” which tells about the conflict between traditional Inuit culture and European ways, was filmed in Iqaluit and starred former Nunavut commissioner Ann Meekitjuk Hanson.

It tells the story of three whalers who escape a shipwreck in 1896 and take refuge in an Inuit community. But because they are armed with guns, Inuit eventually grow to fear the three strangers and kill them.

“It’s really easy to see the story unfolding on the land,” said Daniel Gendron, an archeologist with Avataq. “It’s a lot of speculation, but from a touristic perspective, this is gold.”

The Avirtuuq peninsula is also lies on the way to the island of Qajartalik, the well-known rock carving site, where more than 170 ancient images are carved into the soapstone.

In the summer of 2010, the landholding corporation and Avataq archeologists, working with local students, excavated one of the sites of a former underground dwelling at Qarmait.

That dig turned up several artifacts including tools and a nearly complete soapstone bowl, as well as seal, walrus and caribou remains.

Over the next few years, the landholding and Avataq hope to reconstruct a sod house or qammaq at Qarmait, larger than its original size, so visitors can enter it for themselves.

This qammaq will be constructed with its original materials — sod blocks and rocks.

Visitors will be able to go to Qarmait easily, because it’s located at the end of a hiking trail from Kangiqsujuaq.

Avataq archeologists plan to return to Kangiqsujuaq in the summer of 2011 to complete work at the two sites before the landholding corporation decides how to “package” the cultural experience of visiting these places.