“It’s as it was when it was originally created”

AARON SPITZER

IQALUIT — The pristine waters and stark cliffs of Wager Bay are one step closer to becoming Canada’s newest national park.

With its ratification of an agreement with the federal and territorial governments late last month, the Kivalliq Inuit Association has paved the way for the creation of the park, likely in the next few years.

To be called Ukkusiksalik, the preserve will encompass 22,000 square kilometres in the northern Kivalliq region, just south of the community of Repulse Bay.

At its heart will be Wager Bay, an inland sea that stretches west 100 kilometres from Hudson Bay. Embracing the bay is an awe-inspiring Arctic landscape: hills, cliffs, mudflats and rolling tundra plains.

A reversing waterfall lies at the head of Wager Bay, changing directions as the eight-metre tides surge in and out.

David Aglukark, who headed up park negotiations for the KIA, toured the Ukkusiksalik area two summers ago. He describes the scenery as stunning.

“The land is not disturbed. It’s as it was when it was originally created,” he said. “It’s very, very beautiful — the land and the sea and the lakes.”

Wager Bay is wealthy with wildlife, Aglukark said. The rivers teem with char and trout, the ocean is home to beluga and seals and polar bears, and caribou, musk-ox and wolves roam the surrounding countryside.

Also of value is the area’s human heritage. Inuit archeological sites — tent rings, kayak rests and inuksuit — are common along the shores. More recent artifacts include an abandoned Hudson’s Bay post and Roman Catholic mission.

One naturalist camp — the Inuit-owned Sila Lodge — currently operates in the area.

Impacts and benefits

Inuit uses of Ukkusiksalik will remain largely unaffected by the creation of the national park, Aglukark said.

Under the Inuit impact-and-benefit agreement ratified by the KIA, Inuit hunters and trappers will retain all subsistence-harvesting rights in the area.

Commercial char-fishing rights in one of the rivers will also be retained in case Repulse Bay fishermen chose to use the area.

As in all national parks, for-profit hunting around Wager Bay will be banned. But according to Aglukark, no sport hunting takes place in the area anyway.

The amount of carving stone that can be extracted from the park will also be limited, unless quarriers apply for a special permit.

According to Jim Johnston, the head of new park development for Parks Canada, opening Ukkusiksalik will likely be a boon to tourism in the area, as visitors from the south come to hike, boat or bird-watch.

It will never be another Banff, he acknowledged. “It’s quite an expensive place to get access to. There never will be visitors in great numbers… But if the adventure tourism market stays really strong it’s likely going to do quite well.”

Actual facilities in the park will probably be quite limited, said Johnston.

The promise of increased tourism dollars is part of the reason why area residents were receptive to the park proposal, said Aglukark.

Under the Nunavut land-claim agreement, Inuit will get the first crack at jobs and contracts associated with work in the park.

As well, a park visitors’ centre will be established in Repulse Bay, and maybe another in Rankin Inlet, further adding to the employment opportunities created by Ukkusiksalik.

“The area is already known as one of those beautiful areas for tourists to see,” said Aglukark.

“I think it will be a benefit to Inuit,” he said.

Ukkusiksalik will be the 40th national park in Canada and the fourth in Nunavut.

According to Johnston, Parks Canada is doing studies in preparation for beginning an impact-and-benefit agreement on the proposed Tuktusiuqvialuk National Park on Northern Bathurst Island near the community of Resolute Bay.