Vuntut

Vuntut means "among the lakes" in Gwich'in and protects 4,345 km² in the north-western corner of the Yukon, north of the village of Old Crow, a community of some 300 people reachable only by air and set at the confluence of the Crow and Porcupine rivers. The park was created in 1995 under the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation Final Agreement, negotiated in 1993, with a threefold aim: to conserve a sample of the northern Yukon natural region, to recognise Vuntut Gwitchin history and culture, and to protect the community's traditional and present-day use of the territory. Management is cooperative between Parks Canada, the Vuntut Gwitchin Government and the North Yukon Renewable Resources Council. It borders Ivvavik National Park to the north and Alaska to the west.

The park takes in the northern third of Old Crow Flats (Van Tat), a wetland complex of international importance made up of more than two thousand shallow lakes and small streams, among rolling hills and mountains. Stretches of the spring and autumn migration route of the Porcupine caribou herd pass through it, one of the largest in North America and the protagonist of one of the great land migrations on the planet; some 100,000 caribou and half a million birds cross the park each year. The Vuntut Gwitchin depend on that herd for their physical, cultural and spiritual survival, and the calving grounds and migration routes are protected in Canada by Vuntut and Ivvavik.

The area escaped Pleistocene glaciation, which gives it added scientific value: its undisturbed fossil beds along the Old Crow River are one of the most important sources of vertebrate fossils in Canada and span close to 40,000 years, offering an uncommon window onto the climatic and environmental changes between the glacial epochs and the present. The artefacts found there document very ancient human occupation, and caribou fences and other archaeological sites are also preserved. The John Tizya Centre, in Old Crow, is the park's interpretation point.