Quebec hands out money for new Nunavik hotel

Quebec’s minister of tourism, Nicole Ménard, centre, and Pierre Corbeil, the province’s minister of agriculture, at left, were in Umiujaq last week to announce money for the community’s new hotel. Here, the ministers pose with the members of the local co-operative, who will oversee the new hotel. (PHOTO COURTESY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF TOURISM)

Umiujaq’s new two-floor, 16-room hotel will be managed by the Fédération des Co-opératives du Nouveau-Québec. (PHOTO COURTESY OF THE QUEBEC DEPARTMENT OF TOURISM)

The Quebec government has announced money for the construction of a new hotel in the Hudson Bay community of Umiujaq.

Quebec’s tourism minister Nicole Ménard is in Nunavik this week, where she announced $300,000 towards the construction of a new hotel in the Hudson Bay community.

That money is in addition to another $450,000 committed by the federal government to build the new two-floor, 16-room hotel, which will be managed by the Fédération des Co-opératives du Nouveau-Québec.

“Umiujaq’s new Co-op hotel is a very important player in the development of niche adventure travel and ecotourism in the region,” Ménard said in a Jan. 13 news release. “The opening of Tursujuq Park will bring new customers to the community of Umiujaq, in addition to the business it already has.”

The hotel will replace the community’s aging, eight-room hotel and make room for a growth in tourism expected to come with the opening of the new Tursujaq Park along the nearby Richmond Gulf.

The hotel’s overall price tag is estimated at over $2.5 million – money that will come from different levels of government.

The $450,000 jointly announced Jan. 13 by Denis Lebel, federal minister of transport, infrastructure and communities is expected to make it way to the Umiujaq project, despite Lebel expressing his support for the promotion of tourism in the “Inuit community of Waskaganish” in the same news release.

Quebec’s latest contribution flows from the province’s new assistance program aimed at tourism projects in northern Quebec

As part of its 10-year tourism plan, Quebec plans to spend $32 million to attract more visitors to northern Quebec, with the goal of making the region “a world-class sustainable tourism destination by 2021,” officials said last year.

The strategy, which falls under the province’s sweeping Plan Nord, envisions opening up Nunavik and the province’s three other regions (James Bay-Eeyou Itschee, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean and Côte Nord) to more eco- and adventure tourism, with a spotlight on regional and Aboriginal culture.