Nunavut

Nunavut is Canada's newest territory. Formerly part of the vast Northwest Territories, Nunavut officially separated on April 1, 1999 via the Nunavut Act[?] and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act[?], though the actual boundaries were established as early as 1993.

The capital of Nunavut is Iqaluit (formerly Frobisher Bay) on Baffin Island. Other major communities include Rankin Inlet[?] and Cambridge Bay[?]. Nunavut has a population of only about 27,000 (Nunavumiut, sg. Nunavumiuq) spread over an area the size of Western Europe.

Nunavut means our land in Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit.

History The region now known as Nunavut has supported a continuous population for approximately 4000 years. Most historians also identify the coast of Baffin Island with the Helluland[?] described in Norse sagas[?], so it is possible that the inhabitants of the region had occasional contact with Norse sailors. For more information on the earliest inhabitants and explorers of Nunavut, see Paleoeskimo[?], Neoeskimo[?] and Helluland[?].

The recorded history of Nunavut began in 1576. Martin Frobisher, while leading an expedition to find the Northwest Passage, thought he had discovered gold ore in what is now known as Frobisher Bay on the coast of Baffin Island. The ore turned out to be worthless, but Frobisher made the first recorded European contact with the Inuit. The contact was hostile, with Frobisher capturing four Inuit people and bringing them back to England, where they quickly perished.

Other explorers in search of the elusive Northwest Passage followed in the 17th century, including Henry Hudson, William Baffin and Robert Bylot.

(and there were quite a few more after that. More needs to be said about various explorers and colonial history in Nunavut. But for now, let's make a jump into recent history)

In 1976, negotiations for a land claim agreement and the new territory between the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada[?] and the federal government began. In April 1982, a majority of Northwest Territories residents voted in favour of a division, and the federal government gave a conditional agreement seven months later. A land claims agreement was reached in September, 1992 and ratified by nearly 85% of the voters in Nunavut. In June 1993 the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act[?] and the Nunavut Act[?] were passed by the Canadian Parliament, and the transition was completed on April 1, 1999.

People Nunavut has a population of approximately 27,000, of whom around 85% are native peoples.

Geography The territory covers approximately 1.9 million square kilometers of land and water including part of the mainland, most of the Arctic Islands, and all of the islands in Hudson Bay, James Bay, and Ungava Bay[?] which were formerly attached to the Northwest Territories. The Belcher Islands are the southernmost part of Nunavut.

The creation of Nunavut created Canada's only "four corners," at the intersection of the boundaries of Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, at 60°00' north, 102°00' west, on the southern shore of Kasba Lake[?]. This is not the tourist spot it might be, as it is extremely remote and inaccessible.

See List of communities in Nunavut.

Economy Government

See also

• Canada
• List of Canadian provinces and territories
• List of cities in Canada
• List of Nunavut premiers
• List of communities in Nunavut
• List of Canadian provincial and territorial symbols
• Northwest Territories