Malcolm Gorrill
Northern News Services

Tuktoyaktuk (Apr 24/00) - Plans are ongoing to both promote, and protect, the largest pingo in Canada.

For about a year now Hillarie Greening, district planner with Parks Canada, Western Arctic Field Unit, has been working on a management plan for the Pingo Canadian Landmark.

Located about five kilometres south-southwest of the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk, the landmark was established through the Inuvialuit Final Agreement in 1984.

"It shows off pingo formation," Greening said Thursday. "Pingos are all across the Tuktoyaktuk peninsula, but within the landmark is the largest pingo in Canada."

The largest pingo is about 50 metres high.

Greening said pingos are found in permafrost areas.

"It's like a hill that has a core of ice. They usually form from day lake beds," Greening said.

"Water usually acts as an insulating effect on the ground, so when there's no more water there, the permafrost in the ground underneath where the lake is starts to freeze," Greening said.

"There's permafrost all around it. When water freezes it expands, so the only direction this core of ice can expand is up. So it kind of pushes the ground up into this mound."

In 1992 people attempted to put together a management plan for the Pingo Canadian Landmark, but it was never completed. Those involved with Parks Canada in the current Pingo Working Committee are the Hunters and Trappers Committee, the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk, the Tuk Community Corporation and the Inuvialuit Land Administration.

Greening said the plan is nearly complete, but more assessment needs to be done. She stressed that any plan will have to find a delicate balance between attracting more people to the site and protecting the pingos.

"If you encourage people to go, which we kind of do, then you risk damaging the pingos," Greening said.

"A lot of it is educational, also, and telling people, if you want to go to the landmark, that's great, but you have to be very careful when you walk on the pingos," she said.

Greening said once the management plan is complete, "all the organizations will sign it off, and then, because it's a Parks Canada site, I have to send the plan to Ottawa."