2.6 Cultural History

Management Plan

2.6 Cultural History

Early Inhabitants

Some of the earliest archaeological sites in the Canadian Arctic are within Aulavik National Park. Banks Island, as the westernmost island in the Arctic archipelago, stood on the route traversed first by Aboriginal hunters, some 3,800 years ago. These "Paleoeskimo" peoples are the first known inhabitants of the Canadian Arctic. They were followed by groups who appear to have moved from the west throughout the Arctic. The archaeological cultures are identified mainly on the basis of material goods such as tools, and by evidence of their lifestyles such as dwelling types and cache design. It is now confirmed that Thule peoples occupied the park area during AD 1000-1600. Thule peoples occupied sites on the south end of the island and practised an economy focused on bowhead whale harvesting.

In more recent times, Inuinnait from Victoria Island, who are the descendants of the Thule, travelled and lived in what is now the park. Caches for storing muskox or caribou meat and supplies, tent rings, hearths or fireplaces, possible graves and other features have been found. This evidence suggests that the Inuinnait were active in the park area throughout the 19th century.

Post-European Contact Inhabitants

Anthropologists have speculated that the most recent descendants of the present day Inuit moved onto Banks Island (at least seasonally) between 1853 and 1890 in order to salvage valuable wood, metals and other materials from the abandoned Royal Navy vessel HMS Investigator. The Investigator, under the command of Captain Robert M'Clure, had been part of the Franklin search expeditions. After spending two winters locked in ice in Mercy Bay at the northern end of Banks Island the ship was deserted in 1853. Later the wreck itself either sank or drifted away.

From the late 1920s until the decline of the fur trade in the 1970s, Banks Island was the most productive Arctic fox trapping ground in the world. Eventually families from the Mackenzie Delta, Victoria Island, and Tuktoyaktuk converged at the southwestern tip of Banks Island and set up the permanent community of Sachs Harbour, or Ikaahuk. Today residents of the town of Sachs Harbour occasionally use the north end of the island, but Aulavik is seen as a reservoir for sustaining wildlife populations.

Throughout the 1970s, gas and mineral exploration was carried out through much of Banks Island. No extraction facilities were ever established, although evidence from this activity exists in the form of abandoned fuel caches, drilling holes, seismic lines, and terrain scarring.