page_title: Ukkusiksalik National Park
section_title: Early 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Ukkusiksalik National Park / History / Early 20th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Ukkusiksalik National Park, Nunavut, Canada - self-drawed map (published in the author's book "Der Polarbaer kam spaet abends"); borderline drawn by User:W.H.Woe basing on http://www.newparksnorth.org/images/wager_e.gif
context_page_description: Ukkusiksalik National Park is a national park in Nunavut, Canada. It covers 20,885 km² of tundra and coastal mudflats south of the Arctic Circle and the hamlet of Naujaat, from Hudson Bay's Roes Welcome Sound towards the western Barrenlands and the source of Brown River. The park surrounds Wager Bay, a 100 km-long inlet on the Hudson Bay. Although the smallest of Nunavut's four national parks, it is the sixth largest in Canada. Its name relates to steatite found there: Ukkusiksalik means "where there is material for the stone pot".
  In addition to a reversing waterfall and over 500 archeological sites, including an old Hudson's Bay Company trading post, the region is home to such species as polar bears, grizzly bears, Arctic wolf, barren-ground caribou, seals and peregrine falcons. Vegetation in the park is typical low tundra, with dwarf birch, willow and mountain avens. Scattered patches of boreal forest can be encountered in river valleys.
  The park is uninhabited now, but the Inuit lived there from 11th century to the 1960s. Remains of fox traps, tent rings, and food caches have been discovered in the area.
context_section_description: At the beginning of the 20th century, the Canadian government showed an interest in the Wager Bay region and sent geologist Albert Peter Low on Neptune in order to establish Canada's sovereignty over the Arctic north.
  At nearly the same time, in 1900, the American whaler George G. Cleveland, working alone, established a whaling station near the entrance of the bay, that operated for the next four years. Despite his closure of the station, Scottish whalers for some time tried their luck to hunt marine mammals in the Wager area. Large iron harpoon heads and other remnants are still found on the Savage Islands.
  In 1910, the Royal Northwest Mounted Police (RNWMP, precursor of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) set up a police post at Wager Bay coast, near Savage Islands. A police boat wreck, in a small inlet on the southeast shore of Wager Bay is testimony to the brief presence of police there.
  In 1915, George Cleveland set up a temporary—and the region's first—trading post, near the mouth of Wager Bay. In 1919, Cleveland, now working for the HBC, again set up a trading post in the mouth of Wager Bay. It was transferring building materials for the establishment of the Repulse Bay HBC post. Situated at a favorable location at the northern end of Roes Welcome Sound, this post became important for the company's intention to expand their business towards the north.
  Alongside these local activities, the Hudson's Bay Company, during the first years of the 20th century, made great effort to get the fur trade under control. They started to build up a large and dense network of posts from the barren lands of northwest Hudson Bay to the northern coast of the continent. According to those plans, a post at the outermost edge of Wager Bay should play a key role. That new post was meant to include the Ukkusiksalingmiut area to the Back River estuary, 250 km (160 mi) to the northwest, into the company's strategy, thereby, if ever possible, preventing commercial activities of competitors, Revillon Frères, operating from their Baker Lake base. In the late summer of 1925, the two-masted schooner Fort Chesterfield entered the channel, and, following the advice of local Inuit, found a well-protected inlet in Tusjujak (now Ford Lake, named after J. L. Ford, post manager in 1929) to establish their strategic station.
  During the first years, things went quite well. Besides offering usual supply goods, the post supported the Inuit in general, and gave, as far as possible, medical assistance. Thus, it became a meeting point that allowed Inuit from distant camps to exchange news as well. In December 1929, twenty-two Inuit families were counted, 107 persons in total, camping in their igloos nearby. Soon later, fur trade stopped booming. Hudson's Bay Company changed their major post into an outpost in 1933 and entrusted an Inuk, Iqungajuq (Wager-Dick), with its management. He thereby got the chance to start his own business in the fur trade. Wager-Dick and his family lived in the post buildings and ran the outpost until 1946. The company was eventually successful with its strategy towards its competitor and bought Revillon Frères in 1936.
  Catholic missionaries, Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who passed by in those years set up a small mission on one of Savage Islands, but never had great success and withdrew, when the activities of Hudson's Bay Company ended by mid-1940s and the Inuit had migrated into communities.
  Some 30 years later, from 1979 to 1981, Inuit from Rankin Inlet tried to revive their former homeland, but without success.  The area is presently unoccupied by people, except for occasional visitors and local Inuit who hunt in the area.
  Declared a national park on August 23, 2003, Ukkusiksalik became Canada's 41st national park.
caption: Ukkusiksalik National Park
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