The Thelon River ('' iu, Akilinik'', "on the other side") stretches across northern

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Its source is Whitefish Lake in the

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...

, and it flows east to Baker Lake in

Nunavut Nunavut ( , ; iu, ᓄᓇᕗᑦ , ; ) is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' ...

. The Thelon ultimately drains into

Hudson Bay Hudson Bay ( crj, text=ᐐᓂᐯᒄ, translit=Wînipekw; crl, text=ᐐᓂᐹᒄ, translit=Wînipâkw; iu, text=ᑲᖏᖅᓱᐊᓗᒃ ᐃᓗᐊ, translit=Kangiqsualuk ilua or iu, text=ᑕᓯᐅᔭᕐᔪᐊᖅ, translit=Tasiujarjuaq; french: b ...

Chesterfield Inlet Chesterfield Inlet (Inuit: ''Igluligaarjuk'')Issenman, Betty. ''Sinews of Survival: The living legacy of Inuit clothing''. UBC Press, 1997. pp252-254 is an inlet in Kivalliq Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is an arm of northwestern Hudson Bay, and the ...

Geography

The

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, t ...

of the Thelon River encompasses some . Located far from almost all human development, the Thelon and its surroundings are entirely pristine wilderness. It has been described as Canada's remotest river. The river has a width of up to a kilometre (0.6 mi) along much of its lower section, widening into Beverly,

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

, and Schultz Lakes about upstream from its mouth at Baker Lake.

Fauna

Approximately 100

moose The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult mal ...

and more than 2,000

muskox The muskox (''Ovibos moschatus'', in Latin "musky sheep-ox"), also spelled musk ox and musk-ox, plural muskoxen or musk oxen (in iu, ᐅᒥᖕᒪᒃ, umingmak; in Woods Cree: ), is a hoofed mammal of the family Bovidae. Native to the Arctic, i ...

en forage on the land around the Thelon. 300,000 migrating

barren-ground caribou The barren-ground caribou (''Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus''; but subject to a recent taxonomic revision. See Reindeer: Taxomony.) is a subspecies of the reindeer (or the caribou in North America) that is found in the Canadian territories of ...

cross the river every fall and spring.

History

Inuit Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...

- including

Caribou Inuit Caribou Inuit ( iu, Kivallirmiut/ᑭᕙᓪᓕᕐᒥᐅᑦ), barren-ground caribou hunters, are Inuit who live west of Hudson Bay in Kivalliq Region, Nunavut, between 61° and 65° N and 90° and 102° W in Northern Canada. They were originally na ...

and

Copper Inuit Copper Inuit, also known as Kitlinermiut and Inuinnait, are a Canadian Inuit group who live north of the tree line, in what is now the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut and in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Ter ...

- have long occupied the sparsely-populated lands around the Thelon. Artifacts of Inuit hunting and travel (including

inukshuk An inuksuk (plural inuksuit) or inukshuk (from the iu, ᐃᓄᒃᓱᒃ, plural ; alternatively in Inuinnaqtun, in Iñupiaq, in Greenlandic) is a type of stone landmark or cairn built by, and for the use of, Inuit, Iñupiat, Kalaallit, Yupi ...

guide stones) are readily observed near the river. In 1770–71, English explorer

Samuel Hearne Samuel Hearne (February 1745 – November 1792) was an English explorer, fur-trader, author, and naturalist. He was the first European to make an overland excursion across northern Canada to the Arctic Ocean, actually Coronation Gulf, via the C ...

crossed the Thelon while exploring Canada's northern interior. James William Tyrrell led an expedition through the area in 1900. Over the winter of 1926–27,

John Hornby John Hornby (1880–1927) was an English explorer, best known for his expeditions in the Arctic region of northern Canada, notably in the "Barren Lands" in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Biography Hornby was born to a wealthy family ...

starved to death on the Thelon along with two other men. They had planned to hunt migrating

caribou Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subspe ...

, but failed to find the herd. Nevertheless, on the basis of Hornby's earlier explorations with

James Charles Critchell Bullock James Charles Critchell Bullock (6 September 1898 – 31 March 1953) was best known for his diaries and photographs of an expedition with John Hornby across the Barren Grounds of Canada's Northwest Territories. Early life Bullock was born at 81 ...

in 1923, the Thelon Game Sanctuary was established in 1927, renamed the

Thelon Wildlife Sanctuary The Thelon Wildlife Sanctuary, at , over twice the area of Belgium, is the largest wildlife refuge in Canada. It is located in northern Canada's Arctic region, north of the tree line, straddling the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, halfway be ...

in 1956. In 1927(?), the Norwegian explorer and writer

Helge Ingstad Helge Marcus Ingstad (30 December 1899 – 29 March 2001) was a Norwegian explorer. In 1960, after mapping some Norse settlements, Ingstad and his wife archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad found remnants of a Viking settlement in L'Anse aux Meadows ...

went by

dog sled A dog sled or dog sleigh is a sled pulled by one or more sled dogs used to travel over ice and through snow. Numerous types of sleds are used, depending on their function. They can be used for dog sled racing. Traditionally in Greenland and the e ...

to the headwaters of the Thelon (Lynx Lake) together with native peoples from the east end of

Great Slave Lake Great Slave Lake (french: Grand lac des Esclaves), known traditionally as Tıdeè in Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dogrib), Tinde’e in Wıìlıìdeh Yatii / Tetsǫ́t’ıné Yatıé (Dogrib / Chipewyan), Tu Nedhé in Dëne Sųłıné Yatıé (Chi ...

. This he detailed in his book ''The Land of Feast and Famine''.

Tourism

In 1990, the lower of the Thelon were designated a

Canadian Heritage River The Canadian Heritage Rivers System (CHRS; french: Le réseau de rivières du patrimoine canadien) is a joint program administered by the federal, provincial and territorial governments to conserve and protect the best examples of Canada's river her ...

. Although there is no road access to the river, a number of wilderness campers and canoeists visit the Thelon every summer.

Cultural references

The basin of the Thelon is mentioned in the

1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ...

sci-fi Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universe ...

novel ''

Beetle in the Anthill ''Beetle in the Anthill'' (russian: Жук в муравейнике, translit=''Zhuk v muraveynike'', ) is a 1979 sci-fi novel by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky set in the Noon Universe. ''Beetle in the Anthill'' is the title of a theory explainin ...

'' by

Boris and Arkady Strugatsky The brothers Arkady Natanovich Strugatsky (russian: Аркадий Натанович Стругацкий; 28 August 1925 – 12 October 1991) and Boris Natanovich Strugatsky ( ru , Борис Натанович Стругацкий; 14 A ...

as the location of the embassy of Golovans: intelligent ''canoid'' (dog-like) race evolved at

Saraksh The Noon Universe (Russian term: "Мир Полудня" or "Мир Полдня" – "World of Noon"; also known as the “Wanderers’ Universe”) is a fictional future setting for a number of hard science fiction novels written by Arkady and Bo ...

planet.

References

External links

The Thelon River
from the Canadian Heritage Rivers System

{{authority control Rivers of Kivalliq Region Rivers of the Northwest Territories Canadian Heritage Rivers Tributaries of Hudson Bay