Ukkusiksalik National Park

National Park Of Canada On Wager Bay In The Kivalliq Region; A Reversing Tidal Falls At The Bay'S Mouth, One Of The Densest Polar Bear Populations In The Central Arctic, And Over 500 Recorded Archaeological Sites · Naujaat, Nunavut

Wager Bay reaches a hundred kilometres inland from Hudson Bay, and at its mouth a narrow channel produces a REVERSING TIDAL FALLS - the tide runs in and out through a gap too small for it, and the water falls one way for six hours and the other way for six hours. The park around it, established in 2003, is a hundred kilometres of coast, tundra and cliff with NO ROADS, NO TRAILS, NO FACILITIES AND NO PERMANENT STAFF. Inuit lived and travelled here for thousands of years and there are more than five hundred recorded archaeological sites - tent rings, food caches, fox traps, an abandoned Hudson's Bay post at Ford Lake. The bears are the other thing: the density of polar bears around Wager Bay is among the highest anywhere in the central Arctic, and they are on the land through the summer, not out on the ice. Getting here means chartering an aircraft or a boat from Naujaat or Chesterfield Inlet and travelling with an Inuit guide, which is not optional advice.

Wager Bay, Kivalliq Region, west of Hudson Bay, Naujaat, Nunavut, Canada

THERE IS NO GATE, NO FEE BOOTH, NO VISITOR CENTRE AND NO STAFF ON SITE. The park is open in the sense that the land is there; VISITING IT IS AN EXPEDITION, not a day out. THE SEASON IS ROUGHLY JULY TO EARLY SEPTEMBER, when the sea ice has gone and charter aircraft and boats can operate. ACCESS IS BY CHARTERED AIRCRAFT OR BOAT FROM NAUJAAT OR CHESTERFIELD INLET, both of which are themselves reached by scheduled flight from Rankin Inlet. PARKS CANADA REQUIRES REGISTRATION AND DE-REGISTRATION for every trip, and an experienced Inuit guide is effectively mandatory - the polar bear density here makes independent travel unwise in a way it is not in most parks. Costs run to many thousands of dollars per person. Confirm everything with Parks Canada's Nunavut field unit before committing.

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