Ulukhaktok Airport
Airport serving Ulukhkatok, Northwest Territories, Canada
Ulukhaktok Airport, located at Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories, Canada (IATA: YHI, ICAO: CYHI) was fully opened in December 1978 with the start of the Community Aerodrome Radio Station (CARS). However, aircraft had been using the runway prior to that as construction was completed in the summer of 1978.
The airport is 2 nautical miles (3.7 km; 2.3 mi) north of the town and a road was built to allow access from the community, which also included a short bridge to span the Okpilik River.
Early years
Prior to the construction of the airport all aircraft either landed on an ice strip in the winter or in the middle of town. The old runway ran from the shore of "Jacks Bay" to the centre of the community. Besides limiting the size of the aircraft, Douglas DC-3 or De Havilland Canada Dash 7, able to land it also was a potentially dangerous situation. The only advantages were the fact that freight could be unloaded very easily and MEDIVAC aircraft could park right outside the nursing station. In the late winter, early spring a bulldozer would be used to create a runway on the ice that could be used by larger aircraft such as the C-130 Hercules.
General
The original buildings at the airport included a two-story airport terminal, an emergency power generator building and the aircraft refueling station. The terminal has since been replaced and a three-bay garage to house the maintenance vehicles has been added.
“Ulukhaktok Airport” enters the record as airport serving Ulukhkatok, Northwest Territories, Canada. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ulukhaktok, Airport and serving can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Ulukhaktok Airport” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Ulukhaktok, Airport and serving provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3914305. Authority coordinates are 70.763, -117.806. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1978.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ulukhaktok Airport” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.