The 230 archaeological sites
within the park date back 3400 years and include
occupations by people of Pre-Dorset, Thule and
Copper Inuit cultures. The Nasogaluak site on
the Thomsen River has over 40 caches, subterranean
houses, tent rings, a windbreak, surface artifacts
and bone fragments. There are numerous remnants
of the 4000-year-old Palaeo Eskimo culture such
as their quartzite micro-blades used in the
butchering of animals. The intriguing Head Hill
site, on the north side of the Muskox River,
contains caches as well as the skulls and splintered
bones of over 540 muskoxen. The site was probably
a major encampment for Copper Inuit from 1855
to 1890, used while en route to their salvaging
of the British ship the Investigator, which
was abandoned on Mercy Bay. In the early 1900’s,
the arctic fox pelts attracted Inuvialuit trappers
from the Mackenzie Delta, Victoria Island, the
Tuktoyuktuk Peninsula and Alaska’s north
slope. The first record of European visitation
was during the search for the Northwest Passage
through the Arctic, when Sir John Franklin and
his crew were lost. British expeditions searched
the archipelago but no trace was ever found.
One of the search parties, led by Robert McClure,
became trapped in the ice of Prince of Wales
Strait. Freed from the ice the following spring,
he continued his search around Banks Island
only to again become ice-locked, this time in
Mercy Bay. After enduring two winters here and
facing inevitable starvation, he and his men
set out across the ice. Miraculously they were
found and rescued by a British vessel; their
ship, the forsaken Investigator, became a source
of iron and copper for the Copper Inuit from
Victoria Island until it broke up and sank 50
years later.
|
