Getting a brief taste of life on the island
Herschel Island Qikiqtaruk Territorial Park off Yukon coast is more than just a pit stop
HERSCHEL ISLAND, YUKON— Getting “weathered out” is a constant threat up here in the Western Arctic, where fog routinely delays or cancels charter flights.
That’s why we were so lucky to endure only a short delay before making a threehour pit stop on Herschel Island Qikiqtaruk Territorial Park en route to Ivvavik National Park with Parks Canada.
We marvelled at the way our Twin Otter pilots expertly circled the Pauline Cove landing strip a few times before touching down between the Beaufort Sea and the tundra near a Yukon government sign warning that this wasn’t a designated or maintained airstrip.
The treeless “living park” — once home of the Thule, ancestors of the Inuvialuit, the original people in this part of the Arctic — was gifted to the people of Canada under a land claims agreement in 1987 to protect natural and heritage resources, while still allowing subsistence users to hunt, fish and visit.
The park is open from mid-June to midSeptember for people arriving on charter flights or boat trips out of Inuvik, and is popular with researchers. Park ranger Ricky Joe showed us around the Simpson Point settlement, where commercial whalers set up in the late 1800s. The North-West Mounted Police, RCMP, Anglican missionaries, Hudson’s Bay Co., fur traders, reindeer herders and Royal Canadian Corps of Signals have all spent time here. We explored the former Northern Whaling and Trading Co. building, Canada Customs warehouse, Pacific Steam Whaling Co. community house and bonehouse, where two Inuvialuit men were found guilty of murder and hung from a beam. We didn’t have time to visit four graveyards — two Inuvilauit, one police and one whalers — scattered around the island, but Joe made us tea and regaled us with stories of living off the land just outside of Aklavik before we took off, on time, for Ivvavik. Jennifer Bain was hosted by Parks Canada and Northwest Territories Tourism, which didn’t review or approve this story.