Nunavik’s first provincial park to open next year

KUUJJUAQ — By this time next year, the first official visitors to Nunavik’s first provincial park, Pingualuit, should be flying into a small airstrip near the unique Pingualuit crater — the reason behind the park’s existence.

The crater, located 88 kilometres southwest of Kangiqsujuaq — and not far from the Raglan nickel mine — is the result of a meteorite that crashed there 1.4 million years ago. Inside the surrounding park’s borders also lie the Puvirnituq River Canyon, home to gyrfalcons, peregrine falcons and rough-legged hawks, the “Great Lakes Necklace” of lakes joined to each other by waterways and water falls, and a series of rolling hills.

Five years have passed since the public hearings on Pingualuit were held in Kangiqsujuaq; two years have gone by since Premier Jean Charest officially signed the park into creation; and, one year ago, a kayak made by Maasiu Ningiurivik in 1966 returned home to Kangiqsujuaq to become the centrepiece of the new visitors’ centre.

And still no visitors.

The steps leading to Pingualuit’s opening for public use have taken much longer than the community of Kangiqsujuaq or Kativik Regional Government or its director of park services, Robert Fréchette, anticipated. That’s because each separate issue — the park’s boundaries, vocation, management and infrastructure — and money — had to be negotiated with Quebec.

“We started from zero,” Fréchette says.

But work on Pingualuit steadily advanced last summer: park staff received additional training; they built inuksuit along a future winter trail into the park; and, they put up shelters for visitors and emergency use. Discussions and work continued on the form and content of a final park exhibit for the visitors’ centre.

Meanwhile, progress was also made towards the creation of Nunavik’s second provincial park near Kangiqsualujjuaq, which will be called Kuururjuaq. This park includes the Koroc River and the Torngat mountains, including Mount d’Iberville and the slightly smaller Nuuvugilaa, a natural, 1,466-metre high tower of rock. Kuururjuaq’s boundaries touch the limits of the future Torngat National Park in northern Labrador.

Fréchette is optimistic that Kuururjuaq will move into public hearings as soon as next year and take much less than five years before its official opening.

Even now there are many visitors to the Torngats during the summer, and Fréchette feels Kuururjuaq has the potential to become an extremely popular destination, much like Auyuittuq National Park in Nunavut, drawing hundreds of visitors a year.

“It’s a unique place in Quebec, with nothing else like it,” Fréchette says.

Nunavik’s third park project is located in the Richmond Gulf (Tasiujaq), between Umiujaq and Kuujuaraapik. This park doesn’t have a name yet, but it has its own share of spectacular scenery, including Clearwater Lake (Qasigialik), canyons, and waterfalls.

Richmond Gulf is known for its unusual formations called cuestas. Cuestas are plateaux with unequal slopes, plunging into the water on one side and dropping off more gently in the back on the other. Up to 365 metres high, these cuestas are the largest found in Quebec. From the top of the cuestas, a 360-degree view takes in the Hudson Bay, Nastapoka Islands and the immense bay of the Richmond Gulf.

A narrow passage connects the gulf to the bay. About 10 kilometres long, this passage, known as the Goulet in French, resembles a canyon surrounded by cliffs. Due to the fast-running currents of water, the Goulet remains ice-free all winter, attracting beluga and seals. Meanwhile, the inflow of fresh water from rivers brings brook trout, Arctic char and whitefish into the gulf.

Within the future park limits, there are 58 archeological sites, including a former Hudson Bay Company fur trading post. Four sites are Cree.

At a recent meeting with the KRG, Matthew Mukash, former chief of Whapmagoostui (and recently-elected Grand Chief of the Crees), said people in his community are interested in collaborating with the park’s creation and ensuring Cree traditional knowledge is included. Interviews on Inuit traditional knowledge and field studies of the 500 varieties of vegetation have already been carried out, and the area is closed to all mining exploration.

When the region’s first three parks are finally in place, visitors will have a choice of geography as well as culture to explore. In collaboration with Avataq, Nunavik’s cultural institute, park exhibits are being designed to focus on three different aspects in each of the three parks: in Kangiqsujuaq, living off the land; in Kangiqsualujjuaq, the spiritual side of Inuit culture and the Torngats, named after the spirits or tuurngait; and for the Richmond Gulf, the history of contact between the first residents of the region, Inuit and Cree, with explorers, missionaries and traders.

Number four on Nunavik’s list of future provincial parks is likely to be located in Tasiujaq, whose Leaf Bay is home to some of the world’s highest tides.

Nunavik’s parks network will be a definite draw for visitors in the future — but the new parks won’t change the harvest rights of Inuit, Fréchette emphasizes, because these are guaranteed under the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement.