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BEAUFORT DELTA - After meeting with residents in Inuvik, Sachs Harbour and Ulukhaktok, Parks Canada is ready to put together a new management plan for Aulavik National Park.

The Nasogaluak cultural site, on the east bank of the Thomsen River in Aulavik National Park, is one of the many areas that will be affected by Parks Canada's new management plan for the park. - photo courtesy of Jean-Francois Bisaillon (Parks Canada)

On June 16, June 20 and June 22 residents who attended meeting on the issue were nearly unanimous in their demand to increase visitor traffic to the park, which is no small feat considering it sits on the northern tip of Banks Island, 250 km away from Sachs Harbour and is inaccessible by road.

"We are talking about trying to make a change," Kevin Lunn, a management planner with Parks Canada, told residents at the meeting in Inuvik last month.

Currently, the park receives no more than 20 visitors per year. The visitors, most often researchers, hikers and paddlers, have to charter a flight to get in.

"The challenge, really, is is that it's a remote park," Lunn said.

The 12,000 sq. km park doesn't have any facilities, campgrounds or developed trails, making it a "bucket list" destination for adventurers, albeit an expensive one.

The current draft management plan Parks Canada presented at the meetings has four main points: maintain and enhance visitor opportunities, keep Aulavik healthy and enduring, engage Inuvialuit settlement region communities and bring Canadians closer to Canada's Northern heritage.

Although the meeting in Inuvik only attracted five people, 19 residents attended the meeting in Sachs Harbour and 30 showed up for the meeting in Ulukhaktok.

In Sachs Harbour, residents expressed interest in developing youth camps in the national park to give children and teens more experience on the land and, perhaps, train them for future jobs assisting and monitoring researchers there.

In Inuvik, Parks Canada planners also hinted at the possibility of enticing cruise ships to visit the area, although they're still at the stage of putting out feelers to the cruise ship industry to see what kind of partnerships are possible.

Lunn said the final five-year management plan should be complete by August, and then has to be tabled in Ottawa by Jim Prentice, the federal minister responsible for Parks Canada.

Aulavik, which means "The place where people travel" in Inuvialuktun, is comprised of river valleys, desert, high Arctic sea coast, 350-million-year-old rock formations, a bird sanctuary and the world's largest muskox population. It is open for subsistence usage to the Inuvialuit.

Feedback on the proposed management plan can be sent to Parks Canada until July 11.

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