Bathurst Inlet Lodge

Exclusive Lodge on the Arctic Coast
In-depth Ecotourism Experiences

Introduction: Bathurst Inlet Lodge is an exclusive lodge on the Arctic coast of Canada’s newest territory, Nunavut. Started by a retired RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) officer and his wife in 1969, Bathurst Inlet Lodge has offered in-depth ecotourism experiences for 34 years, and is known around the world for its quality of service. Bathurst has the further distinction of being one of the first and most successful Inuit partnerships in all the North. It is a partnership between the Warner family of Yellowknife, and the Kapolak and Akoluk families of the small Nunavut community of Bathurst Inlet.

Location: Bathurst Inlet Lodge is located in a small Inuit community on the Arctic coast of Canada, 360 air miles northeast of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Situated on a strikingly scenic deep inlet off the Arctic Ocean, the lodge is 30 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

Transportation: Lodge packages originate in Yellowknife and include the 360 mile  charter air flights to/from the lodge, usually by extremely reliable DeHavilland Twin Otter aircraft. Although the lodge does have a private airstrip, most flights from Yellowknife are by floatplane.

Setting and accommodations: The lodge is the central feature in the tiny, picturesque community of Bathurst Inlet. The main building houses the living room, a conference room and library, washrooms, and kitchen; it occupies a historic old Hudson Bay Trading Post building. Guests are housed in a variety of accommodations from private bedrooms in historic buildings as well as individual cabins, each with two separate rooms, bathroom, All are equipped with twin beds (one room with a double bed), and linens. Some heating is electric, some propane, and some oil. Toilets are “honey bucket” style, typical of the Arctic of the past, as permafrost prevents the use of sewage lines. These are changed as frequently as needed.  Shower facilities vary; some rooms have the showers in the same building, others in a separate adjacent building. A few single rooms are available but cannot be guaranteed in advance!

Meals: Breakfast is “to order”, full breakfasts with eggs cooked as you like, side meats, or cereals, pancakes, etc. Lunch is most often eaten in the field, in lovely settings, and is picnic-style. A choice of lunch ingredients are set out at breakfast, and guests make their own sandwiches, accompanying them with home made cookies, cheese, fruit, etc. Coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and juice are provided picnic-style. Dinners are full-course cooked meals with locally-caught Arctic char served twice a week (or more if the guests prefer!), vegetable dishes, salads and a variety of desserts. Special diets can be handled but advanced notice is required.

Activities: Daily activities include boat trips on Bathurst Inlet and surrounding waters, on an extremely stable 40 ft. pontoon boat which allows easy use of binoculars, spotting scopes, and permits guests to walk around and converse normally while underway. It also sports a sea-going outhouse, which reduces anxiety in this land of few trees, and reduces pollution on the land.

Early in the season, you will travel by boat to the sea ice, to observe ringed seals hauled out on the ice, and birds like common eiders, long-tailed ducks, yellow-billed, red-throated, and Pacific loons, and a variety of gulls and jaegers. You will also visit a wide variety of spots on the mainland and on islands in the Inlet, stopping to observe nesting peregrine falcons, golden eagles, or rough-legged hawks, hiking in areas with superb shows of arctic flowers, stalking caribou or musk oxen, or visiting ancient Inuit campsites or inukshuk game drive systems. If high winds prevent sea trips, the hiking from the Lodge or on the adjacent delta of the Burnside River is very rewarding, with opportunities to observe nesting loons, tundra birds, shorebirds, caribou, and occasionally, wolves, foxes, or sometimes even a wolverine or a grizzly.

Itinerary:  The itinerary is controlled by the weather, the wind, and the presence and movement of the sea ice (in the first part of the season), but is arranged to provide the best exposure to the wildlife, wildflowers, and signs of Inuit life of the past.

Supplementary activities included in the base price include canoeing in the sheltered waters of the delta, occasional swims (optional!) in the Arctic ocean, casual sport fishing for arctic char or lake trout, or opportunities for instruction in wildflower photography. Additional activities are occasionally available at additional cost, such as helicopter or floatplane flightseeing or evening boat trips with a local family.

Arctic Experts and people, special guides:  Bathurst Inlet Lodge is known for its quality of natural history, historical, and cultural interpretation; there are few places that feature the exposure to true arctic experts or the chance to get to know the local Inuit on a personal level. Trish and Glenn Warner, who started the Lodge, are still fully involved, and share stories of their life from the 1950s on, in the Arctic. John R. Sperry, retired Anglican Bishop of the Arctic, and author of Igloo Dwellers Were My Church, is on hand to walk with guests, and share stories of his life on the arctic coast from 1950 on. As a missionery, he travelled some 3000 miles a year from Coppermine (now Kugluktuk) by dogteam to visit his parishioners along the coast. Page Burt, author of Barrenland Beauties, a colour field guide to the showy plants of the Canadian arctic, manages the interpretive program and guides guests on daily hikes. Guests can hike as much or as little as they like, and a superb library of some 600 northern books awaits those who decide to take it easy for the day.

All resource people offer evening slide shows and special programs. In addition, Inuit co-owners like the boat captain Sam Kapolak, head housekeeper Martha Akoluk, and their families work with the guests, sharing stories of lives lived, literally, at the edge of the world. A special cultural evening features involvement from the entire community, including the children, and includes interpretation of Inuit artifacts, traditional clothing, hunting implements, and tools, and the ceremonial lighting of the soapstone lamp called a kudlik. These activities offer superb photographic opportunities.

Different focuses of the departures:  The early weeks of the season feature an abundance of arctic wildflowers and the passage of summer migrants still heading north to their nesting grounds in the High Arctic, as well as opportunities to get close to the sea ice. In the later summer weeks, the retreat of the ice allows to go further a field on the Inlet. The the focus is more on the history of the area, both Inuit history and culture and the history of European exploration of the area.  For example: a special history week called “Franklin Week” is offered in which the first Franklin expedition of 1819-1822 is remembered and in which John Franklin, John Richardson and their party of 22 men mapped the Coppermine River and the Arctic coast from the mouth of the Coppermine to the Kent Peninsula, including Bathurst Inlet. Several nearby campsites used by this expedition will be visited in the special history weeks.