Ukkusiksalik National Park is located on the northwest shore of Hudson Bay in the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut, near the community of Repulse Bay.
Plans for the Ukkusiksalik National Park stem back to 1978 and were reflected in the 1993 Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (NLCA). In order to facilitate the creation of the park, the NLCA acknowledged that there was a parcel of Inuit Owned Lands within the proposed park boundaries. The NLCA identified a possible exchange of land in which Crown lands located outside the park would become Inuit Owned Lands in exchange for the lnuit Owned Lands within the park boundary.
The lands within Ukkusiksalik National Park are managed and used according to the provisions outlined in the 1993 NLCA. The NLCA addresses important matters such as: Inuit access to park services and facilities; measures for wildlife protection and conservation; land use within a park boundary; and protection and management of archaeological sites and sites of religious or cultural significance.
ln 2003, the Kivalliq Inuit Association (KIA), the Government of Canada and the Government of Nunavut signed an Inuit Impact and Benefit Agreement to establish Ukkusiksalik National Park. Similar to the NLCA, the Inuit Impact and Benefit Agreement allowed for an exchange of Crown lands located outside the park for the Inuit Owned Lands within the park boundary.
Once the specific areas were determined through a consultation process and an exchange agreed upon, legal descriptions were prepared, an Order-in-Council was approved and the land parcels were registered at the Nunavut Land Titles Office. The parcels of land outside the park are now fee-simple Inuit Owned Lands owned by the KIA. Only surface rights were transferred to these land parcels.
The two parcels were selected by the KIA on behalf of Inuit in the Kivalliq region and amount to the same area, 327 square kilometers, as the land within the park boundary.
These parcels will allow the KIA to explore economic development opportunities. The parcel of land inside the park is now Crown land under the responsibility of the Government of Canada. All Inuit and Nunavummiut will benefit from the conservation of this culturally and archaeologically significant land.
The image is a map that displays the land exchanged between Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada and the Kivalliq Inuit Association in Nunavut. The map is zoomed into three regions in Nunavut: the Kivalliq region directly north of Hudson Bay, the Kitikmeot region further north, and the Qikiqtani region to the northeast. Ukkusiksalik National Park is in the Kivalliq and Kitikmeot regions. The Inuit Owned Land parcel to become Crown Land is located on the eastern shore of Wager Bay. One parcel to become Inuit Owned Land is located just west of Baker Lake, which is west of the National Park, and the other is located northeast of Repulse Bay, which is east of the park and south of Qikiqtani region.
This map is for visual purposes only and should not be used for defining legal boundaries.
Named after the soapstone found within its boundaries, Ukkusiksalik National Park protects a representative sample of the Central Tundra Natural Region of the national park system. Features such as mudflats, cliffs, rolling tundra banks, unique coastal regions and a reversing tidal falls can be found within the park's 20,500 square kilometer boundary. While Inuit do hunt in the region, the parkland is uninhabited. Inuit had lived in the area from 1000 AD through to the 1960s, and the Hudson's Bay Company had a trading post there from 1925-1947. Over 500 archaeological sites have been identified in the park, including features such as fox traps, tent rings and food caches.
