Wapusk National Park of Canada

The Wapusk National Park Collection is home to a variety of digital products related to various activities that have occurred in the national park.

Established in 1996, Wapusk National Park is Canada’s seventh largest national park, covering 11,475 square kilometres in northern Manitoba near the town of Churchill, and represents the Hudson-James Lowlands, a vast, low-lying plain on the western shores of Hudson Bay. The land is a flat, poorly drained coastal plain with numerous lakes, ponds, creeks and meandering rivers that cover half of the land’s surface. The provincial Churchill Wildlife Management Area borders the park to the west and south.

The park is home to 762 species of plants, 38 mammal species, 11 fish species, two amphibian species and over 200 species of birds.

Continuous permafrost (permanently frozen ground) underlies this subarctic region and is topped by North America’s most extensive mantle of peat, which is formed from the accumulation of partially decayed vegetation in moist environments. Peat covers approximately 27 per cent of the ground in Wapusk National Park.

The park protects critical habitat for hundreds of thousands of waterfowl and shorebirds which nest on the Hudson Bay coast in summer and gather to feed during spring and fall migration. Wapusk National Park is also home to one of the world's largest known polar bear maternity denning areas, where pregnant females give birth to their cubs.

The earliest evidence of human occupation of the Wapusk National Park area dates back to about 3,000 years ago. The languages and traditional knowledge of the local Cree are preserved in place names here, reflecting the long-past history of this land.

Today, Wapusk National Park is managed by Parks Canada, the Government of Canada Agency responsible for protecting and presenting Canada's natural and cultural heritage on behalf of all Canadians. Wapusk National Park has a management plan that sets out the strategy for protecting the park, guides research and monitoring programs and provides the framework for the provision of visitor activities.

Parks Canada is supported by the ten-member Wapusk Management Board, which is made up of representatives of Canada, Manitoba, the Town of Churchill, York Factory First Nation and Fox Lake Cree Nation. The Board advises the Minister responsible for Parks Canada on the planning, management and operation of the park.

Parks Canada works closely with a variety of partners, including universities, institutions and other government departments, to learn more about the park and its ecology through research. Parks Canada also monitors the impacts of stressors on the local ecosystems within the park’s boundaries.

Parks Canada’s mandate also includes presenting Wapusk National Park to Canadians through visitor experiences that inspire and connect hearts and minds to a stronger, deeper understanding of the very essence of Canada.