Herschel Island (Qikiqtaruk)

Qikiqtaruk Herschel Island Territorial Park, The Yukon'S First Territorial Park, Established 1987 Under The Inuvialuit Final Agreement; Site Of The 1890s Pauline Cove Whaling Station · Inuvik, Yukon

For a few years around 1900, the largest settlement in the Yukon was not Dawson City but a sandspit on an Arctic island five kilometres off the territory's northern coast. American whaling ships wintered at Pauline Cove chasing bowhead for the baleen in corsets, and up to fifteen hundred people lived here through the dark months. The community house they built in 1893 is the oldest frame building in the Yukon and it is still standing, along with a blubber house, an ice house and a row of graves. Inuvialuit families have used Qikiqtaruk for far longer, and their sod house remains are in the ground around the cove. What makes a visit urgent rather than merely remote is that the island is coming apart: the permafrost holding it together is thawing, the shore is retreating, and buildings have already had to be moved back from a coast that is disappearing.

Qikiqtaruk-Herschel Island Territorial Park, Beaufort Sea, Inuvik, Yukon, Canada

SEASONAL AND CHARTER-ONLY. The park is practically visitable from roughly LATE JUNE TO EARLY SEPTEMBER, when the Beaufort is workable and Inuvialuit rangers are stationed at Pauline Cove; outside that window there are no staff and no realistic access. THERE IS NO SCHEDULED TRANSPORT - arrival is by chartered small aircraft or boat from INUVIK in the NWT, roughly two to three hours by sea, priced by the aircraft or vessel rather than per person. CHARTERS ARE CANCELLED BY FOG AND WIND FOR DAYS AT A TIME, so build spare days at both ends. No food, fuel, lodging or cell coverage on the island; camping at Pauline Cove only.

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