Fly-in communities , Fly-in Communities, Travel Guide

Accessible only by air except in winter, when incredible snow roads are ploughed across the frozen delta, Delta-Beaufort's four fly-in communities are close to some fascinating and relatively accessible Arctic landscapes and cultures. All are served by Inuvik-based Aklak Air, Box 1190, Inuvik (tel 777-3555, fax 777-3388) or Arctic Wings, Box 1159, Inuvik (tel 777-2220, fax 777-3440). All also have simple stores, though their prices make it wise to take in at least some of your own supplies. Some have hotels, but you should be able to camp close to all four: ask permission first at the village head office. The best way to see them is with a tour company from Inuvik , but even if you're going under your own steam it's still worth checking with the tour companies for discounted flight-only deals.

AKLAVIK (pop. 800), 50km west of Inuvik on the western bank of the Mackenzie delta, means "Place of the Barren Lands Grizzly Bear". A Hudson's Bay post aimed at the trade in muskrat fur was established here in 1918, though for generations before the region had been the home of Inuvialuit families who once traded and frequently clashed with the Gwich'in of Alaska and the Yukon. Today both live together in a town that melds modern and traditional, and whose inhabitants are proud not to have jumped ship when they were invited to leave their sinking town for Inuvik in the 1950s. Most are happy to regale you with stories of the mysterious "Mad Trapper of Rat River", a crazed drifter (supposedly a former Chicago gangster) who reputedly killed trappers for the gold in their teeth. Questions should really have been asked when he arrived in Fort McPherson and purchased - with suspiciously vast amounts of cash - unusually large numbers of guns and ammunition. He then built a cabin-cum-fortress on the delta and shot the constable sent to figure out what was going on. A seven-man posse armed with guns and fistfuls of dynamite were then forced to retreat after a fifteen-hour siege. After fleeing and shooting a Mountie, he grabbed world headlines briefly in 1931 as he managed to elude capture for forty days in the dead of a brutal winter. To this day no one knows who he was, where he came from or why he embarked on his killing spree. He was eventually shot on the Eagle River, surrounded by seventeen men and buzzed by a bomb-carrying light plane: he's buried in town in unconsecrated ground. The Hudson's Bay post is still around, together with a former mission church, now a small museum, but there's no restaurant and only one shop. Arctic Wings and Aklak Air flights from Inuvik operate daily except Sunday. A one-day tour with stunning twenty-minute flight and an hour in town from either of Inuvik's big tour companies should cost around $130: for a few dollars more you can fly in and boat out, probably the best way of doing things.

TUKTOYAKTUK , or simply Tuk (pop. around 1000) sits on a sandspit on the Beaufort coast about 137km north of Inuvik, and acts as a springboard for oil workers and tourists, both considered outsiders who have diluted the traditional ways of the whale-hunting Karngmalit (or Mackenzie Inuit), who have lived and hunted in small family groups on this fascinating but inhospitable shore for centuries. Half the families were wiped out in the early twentieth century by an influenza epidemic introduced by outsiders. The Hudson's Bay Company, inevitably, arrived in 1937. Many locals still hunt, fish and trap, but government, tourism and the oil business now pay most wages. This is the most popular tour outing from Inuvik, with trips starting at about $130, a sum worth paying just to enjoy the scenic low-altitude flight up here. Most casual visitors come to see pods of beluga and great bowhead whales, or to look at the world's largest concentration of pingoes , 1400 volcano-like hills thrown up by frost heaves across the delta's otherwise treeless flats. This is among the world's largest grouping of these strange features, and includes the world's largest pingo, Ibyuk, a mound 30m high and 1.5km in circumference visible from the village.

Tuk's only hotels - booking is essential - are the Hotel Tuk Inn (tel 977-2381; $125-175), on the main street near the ocean, and the Pingo Park Lodge (tel 977-2155; $125-175): both have dining rooms open to nonresidents. The Northern supermarket sells groceries. You should be able to camp near the beach, but ask first. Flights from Inuvik operate daily (upwards of $200 return). Inuvik's main tour companies come out here, but if you want a local operator contact Arctic Tour Company (tel 977-2230) for naturalist, fishing, camping, hiking or wildlife-watching tours in the Anderson River area.

PAULATUK (pop. 110), 400km east of Inuvik, is one of NWT's smallest permanent communities. Situated on a spur between the Beaufort and an inland lake, the settlement was started by the Roman Catholic Mission in 1935 as a communal focus for the seminomadic Karngmalit, who despite such paternalism have fought off the adverse effects of missionaries and trader-introduced alcoholism to hang onto some of their old ways. Hunting, fishing and trapping still provide their economic staples, along with handicrafts aimed at the tourists out here mainly for the chance to watch or hunt big game. Key sites for the former activity are the cliffs of the Cape Parry Bird Sanctuary and the Tuktut National Park on the Parry Peninsula to the west, a gathering place for the migrating Bluenose caribou herd. Local operators will take you out to both areas, and in spring run trips to look for polar bears on the Amundsen Gulf. The village's name means "place of coal", a reference to the coal seams to the northeast, where the (literally) Smoking Hills take their name from the smouldering coal ignited years ago and still burning. Aklak Air flights operate twice weekly from Inuvik.

The only settlement on Bank's Island is SACHS HARBOUR (pop. 150-200), situated 520km northeast of Inuvik. It was only permanently settled in the late 1920s, and only then by just three Inuvialuit families. Today it supports a handful of self-sufficient Inuit families who survive largely by outfitting hunters and trapping musk ox for food and underfur ( qiviut ), which is spun and woven into clothes on sale locally. For generations the island has been known as one of the north's finest trapping areas, the abundance of white foxes in particular having long attracted the Inuit and other hunters. Today there's still an abundance of wildlife, including the world's largest grouping of musk ox.

Five double rooms are available at Kuptana's Guest House (tel 690-4151; $175-240 including meals), with shared facilities. Ask first and you should be able to camp by the beach. Be warned: there is no restaurant in the town, just a small grocery store. Two Aklak Air flights operate from Inuvik weekly (from $350 one-way), though for a little more you can join an all-inclusive Arctic Nature Tours trip from Inuvik.