Created as a buffer from mining activity, Pingualuit park thrives 20 years on
Nunavik Parks looking to create 2 more protected areas in region
This is part 3 of a three-part series on the 20th anniversary of Nunavik Parks. Nunatsiaq News was invited to visit Kangiqsujuaq to experience parts of Pingualuit National Park.
It was the early 2000s, and people in Kangiqsujuaq were concerned that nearby mining corporations were destroying the surrounding land.
Raglan Mine and Canadian Royalties were producing nickel and bringing substantial benefits to the local economy, remembers Markusi Qisiq, Kativik Regional Government’s renewable resources director, but the consequences were apparent.
“We don’t want to make a scar on our land, we want to keep it as natural as possible,” said Qisiq, who told Nunatsiaq News he was there for the first public hearings into a potential Pingualuit National Park.
The northern boundary of Pingualuit, which turns 20 this year, is a river that separates the protected land from what has been opened to resource extraction.
Over that time, Qisiq has gone from being the assistant director of Pingualuit park, to becoming its director, to now being the head of KRG’s renewable resources department which manages all of Nunavik’s parks.
He said that within the boundaries of the park, not even an all-terrain vehicle should be on the land to avoid leaving marks. In total, the park encompasses more than 1,130 square kilometres.
“We want to keep it traditional for our future generations,” he said.
Mary Pilurtuut, who is the current director of Pingualuit, also remembers the park’s early days and the growth that came from locals taking over stewardship.
“The word tourism was something new,” she said. “We did not have an understanding of what a national park is.”
At the time, Pilurtuut was the secretary-treasurer at the Northern Village of Kangiqsujuaq.
First, the local team had to lay the groundwork for the proposed protected area. Then they had to learn the business of tourism, including who would visit and what to do with them when they arrived.
During those public hearings, representatives at Makivvik Corp. and the Government of Quebec were also present to hear the questions and concerns from the community.
The people of Kangiqsujuaq had a major concern: would they still be able to hunt on their land within the boundaries of a national park?
The short answer, said Pilurtuut, was yes.
“The James Bay Northern Quebec Agreement is higher than the Canada National Parks Act, since it is a treaty,” she said, which puts Nunavik Parks in a unique position compared to other national parks in Canada.
The Canada National Parks Act, enacted in 2000, states “nothing in this act shall be construed so as to abrogate or derogate from the protection provided for existing aboriginal or treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada.”
“Down south, parks are like a bubble of protection,” said Corentin Chaillon, a conservation specialist at Nunavik Parks, in French. “You can’t hunt, you can fish in certain lakes, but it is very framed.
“Here, it is an open territory, beneficiaries can hunt and fish, with no trails. We want to protect, but not the same way.”
Chaillon said parks in Nunavik are protected areas for animals such as caribou, but they are not protected from Inuit. Rather, they are safeguarded from the mining companies that develop infrastructure which can impact migrations.
Hunting has become an important part of the experience Nunavik’s parks offer to visitors.
For Pingualuit park guide Noah Annahatak, showing how a caribou is harvested — from shooting to skinning to butchering — is important knowledge to share.
Many of those who visit are Inuit youth from schools across Nunavik. Annahatak said that makes knowledge-sharing even more crucial.
“There is no book on how to butcher a caribou,” he said. “We learn by watching.”
Looking into the future, Nunavik Parks staff hope to strike a balance between expanding the parks and what they offer while ensuring that growth is sustainable.
“We have to be careful, we are a small community,” said Pilurtuut.
“Even if we take more [tourists], we have to think about their accommodations like the hotel, hotels are always booked.”
Nunavik Parks is working on creating two more parks and waiting on approval to fund that work. One of the parks is named Iluiliq, near Ivujivik, and the other is Leaf Bay between Aupaluk and Tasiujaq.
A bit of trivia related to the minerals found near the N.Q. Crater, it is because of the upheaval, strike from the asteroid that formed the crater that minerals from deep were forced upward to the earth surface; nickel is the more commonly found mineral.