All Great Canadian Wilderness field programs offer detailed interpretations of local Arctic history and archaeology. This is not only intriguing in its own right, but often directly applies to our modern day endeavors to locate wildlife: The attempt to try to understand the logic behind the occupational evidence of the natives whose survival depended on their unique ability to locate and make correct decisions to effectively hunt wild animals for food and shelter. Those very same types of animals that - a millennium later - we now attempt to approach and photograph for our pleasures.

The history of the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions has long intrigued civilization - perhaps due the remarkable travel feats accomplished by the early explorers, or curiosity of the grueling hardships and sometimes death that often enough surrounded their explorations and adventures. Perhaps, introspectively, it is the intrigue of the inner desire to participate -if even just from an armchair - with the 'conquering' of one of the last world's last great unknown regions. Maybe it is a bit of all these things combined.

For whatever the reasons, the history of the Arctic & sub-Arctic has long captured the imagination of scholars, governments, exploration societies, universities, and the publics they serve. For example, huge treatise have been written about this subject that examine varying speculations of the routes navigated and fates befallen by the many brave explorers who were the first to attempt navigating the then-unexplored Northwest Passage, such as the lost Franklin expedition. Of equal intrigue are the ongoing searches for the most likely paths followed across the vast Arctic mainland by the likes of Samuel Hearne, Commander George Back, Wharburton Pike, David Hanbury, JB Tyrrell, and many others.

Even lesser known - yet perhaps even more important - is the more neglected history of the natives - the Dene' Indian & Inuit peoples that lived upon and harvested the harsh Arctic & sub-Arctic wildlife and waters for thousands of years before even the first European explorer set foot upon the frozen shores. Many of those European explorers attempted to lay claim to discovery of lands that were already inhabited by hearty peoples: aboriginals about whose cultural relationships, traditional knowledge and unique ability to survive on the harsh lands upon which they lived are first now coming to light to the 'outside' world. Although evidence of continued nomadic occupations of these peoples lay directly beneath the feet of the likes of Franklin and Hearne, credibility was rarely bestowed by the early Europeans to the natives - often enough the very people upon whose knowledge and hospitality they depended upon for their survival. The first major exception to that 'oversight' was the writings of British Explorer David Hanbury in his epic journal 'Sport & Travel in the Northland of Canada', in which his appreciation for the inland Inuit peoples in the Baker Lake-Thelon region was profoundly expressed.

The Thelon River region of the central mainland Arctic remained one of the last areas to be explored in Canada. This area was not even mapped until the advent of aerial photography in the mid 1950's filled in the unmapped white blank areas on the rough maps there were. As this region is now the primary area of operations for Great Canadian Wilderness, it is the somewhat unusual - and often unwritten history of the Thelon that is the base and 'common ground' of this historical introduction to the Arctic. We invite you to follow the links and read on to learn more about the early peoples of our Arctic & sub-Arctic lands...