Max Finkelstein
(author, canoeist, photographer)

 

Wednesday, April 21, 2010 7:00 pm
Cornwall public library

Title: Thelon Wildlife Sanctuary: Northern Canada’s Wilderness Jewel

 The Thelon River in Nunavut and the northwest Territories cuts across one of the last regions of Canada to be explored and mapped, and it remains one of the most pristine wilderness areas in the world. Here, musk-ox, caribou, wolves, grizzly bears, wolverine, moose and other large wildlife roam year-round. In the brief summer, untold numbers of waterfowl and shorebirds nest in the ponds and on the barrens. No wonder much of the Thelon area has been protected as a Game Sanctuary since 1927, and the river designated as a Canadian Heritage River. This is quintessential

 Arctic wilderness.

 It is not only the richness of its wildlife, but the human history of the Thelon gives the area a value beyond the intrinsic value of wilderness.  From David Hanbury, the first European to travel through this area, to the tragedy and triumph of John Hornby, who advocated for the area to be set aside as a game sanctuary, and ironically starved to death there, to more

 modern adventurers like W.H.B.Hoare, the first game warden of the  sanctuary (and whose daughter still lives in Ottawa), historian, author  Eric Morse, the first 'modern tourist' to paddle through the Sanctuary,  and a plethora of Canada's most famous wildlife biologists learned their  craft living and studying in the Thelon Game Sanctuary. The Thelon Game

 Sanctuary has extraterrestrial connections as well. It was here that the  Cosmos 954 Satellite crashed in 1978.

 But there is trouble in paradise. In recent years, the Beverley Caribou herd, which numbered over 300,000 in the early 1990s, has crashed. Musk ox, which was commonly seen by the hundreds along the river, is now a rare sight. Mining interests loom on the horizon, threatening the pristine and remote nature of the Thelon. What will the future bring to one of the world’s last great wilderness areas?

In this presentation, the natural and human history of the Thelon is shown through images and stories, and some of the issues affecting the future of this special place are explored.

Click to download - Winter2010 Speaker flyer (in pdf)