Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services

Marble Island (Aug 28/00) - Marble Island rests like a ghostly white gem off the Arctic coast, just a two- hour boat ride from Rankin Inlet.

From a visual perspective it's an enchanting and seductive sight; easily evoking in passersby the desire to land on its craggy shores.

From a historical perspective, tales of the island date back thousands of years.

For example, when visitors exit the boat they must crawl up on the rocky shore out of respect for the lady who turned the island from ice to rock. According to legend, those who fail to obey will be plagued with bad hunting or death within a year.

It is also the site of the mysterious demise of British explorer James Knight and 50 of his crew.

Earlier this month, on Aug. 10 and 13, two groups of French tourists from the cruise ship Le Levant, experienced the dizzying magic of Marble Island.

"It's a neat place, as well. There's a lot of wildlife around there, along with the neat stories," says Daniel Krueger of Nunavut Tourism in Rankin Inlet.

To make the trip even more fascinating for the French tourists, residents, elders, artists and merchants set up a welcome camp on the island.

"There's a local tour company in town that was contracted by the cruise ship to provide an interpretive tour. (Kivalliq Tours) approached me and said it would be really nice if we could get more of the community involved, instead of just having one company go out there and do their tour."

The hamlet, Nunavut Tourism, and others also became involved.

"We provided boats to give carvers and other businesses to go out there and have a venue where they could sell their stuff," says Krueger.

"The tourists loved it. We had a lot of positive remarks. A lot of them were actually keen on coming into the community (of Rankin), which I guess was part of our strategy. We wanted to go out there and say, 'Look we're over here, not too far away.'"

Krueger says having the tourists come to the hamlet in future is ideal because some carvers are too old to make the two-hour trip to the island, which is rough at times.

"This is where we have all our resources, all our people. We could on a pretty good show here. And that's what we're going to work towards over the next year."

The cruise ship passes the area four times during the season, and carries a different group of passengers each time.

"We've made contacts with the cruise ship company, and also with the people that charter the cruise ships," says Krueger.

The opportunities which could result from the influx of people, about 80 per cruise, could be phenomenal for the arts community.