Nunavut Business Directory
Nunavut (IPA: /ˈnuːnəvʊt/, Inuktitut /'nunavut/) (Inuktitut syllabics: ᓄᓇᕗᑦ) is the largest and newest territory of Canada; it was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999 via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, though the actual boundaries had been established in 1993. The creation of Nunavut – meaning "our land" in Inuktitut – resulted in the first major change to Canada's map since the incorporation of the new
province of Newfoundland in 1949.
Nunavut comprises a major portion of Northern Canada, and most of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, making it the fifth-largest country subdivision in the world. The capital Iqaluit (formerly "Frobisher Bay") on Baffin Island, in the east, was chosen by the 1995 capital plebiscite. Other major communities include the regional centres of Rankin Inlet and Cambridge Bay. Nunavut also includes Ellesmere Island to the north, as well as the eastern and southern portions of Victoria Island in the west. Nunavut is both the least populated and the largest of the provinces and territories of Canada. It has a population of 29,474[2] spread over an area the size of Western Europe.
A.
Arviat
B.
Baker Lake
C.
Cambridge Bay
Cape Dorset
Chesterfield Inlet
Clyde River
Coral Harbour
G.
Gjoa Haven
H.
Hall Beach
I.
Iqaluit
P.
Pangnirtung
R.
Rankin Inlet
Resolute
S.
Sanikiluaq
T.
Taloyoak
W.
Whale Cove
Nunavut covers about 1.9 million km² (750,000 sq mi) of land and 161,000 km² (62,000 sq mi) of water in Northern Canada including part of the mainland, most of the Arctic Archipelago, and all of the islands in Hudson Bay, James Bay, and Ungava Bay (including the Belcher Islands) which belonged to the Northwest Territories. This makes it the fifth largest subnational entity (or administrative division) in the world. If Nunavut were a country, it would rank 13th in area.[7] Nunavut has land borders with the Northwest Territories on several islands as well as the mainland, Manitoba to the south of the Nunavut mainland, Saskatchewan to the southwest – thereby forming a quadripoint at 60°00′N 102°00′W / 60, -102 (Four Corners (Canada)) with these three aforementioned regions – and a tiny land border with Newfoundland and Labrador on Killiniq Island. It also shares maritime borders with the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba and with Greenland.
Nunavut's highest point is Barbeau Peak on Ellesmere Island. The population density is 0.015 persons per square kilometre, one of the lowest in the world. By comparison, Greenland, to the east, has almost the same area and nearly twice the population.
Main article: History of Nunavut
The region now known as Nunavut has supported a continuous population for approximately 4,000 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.
Further information: Dorset culture, Eskimo
The written history of Nunavut begins in 1576. Martin Frobisher, while leading an expedition to find the Northwest Passage, thought he had discovered gold ore around the body of water 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 both sides taking prisoners who subsequently perished.
Other explorers in search of the elusive Northwest Passage followed in the 17th century, including Henry Hudson, William Baffin and Robert Bylot.
Cornwallis and Ellesmere Islands feature in the history of the Cold War in the 1950s. Efforts to assert sovereignty in the High Arctic, i.e. the area's strategic geopolitical position, led the federal government to the High Arctic relocation of Inuit from northern Quebec to Resolute and Grise Fiord. They faced starvation in the unfamiliar and hostile conditions but were forced to stay. Forty years later, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples issued a report entitled The High Arctic Relocation: A Report on the 1953-55 Relocation. The government paid compensation but did not apologize. The whole story is told in Melanie McGrath's The Long Exile: A Tale of Inuit Betrayal and Survival in the High Arctic.
In 1976 as part of the land claims negotiations between the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (then called the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada) and the federal government, the division of the Northwest Territories was discussed. On April 14, 1982, a plebiscite on division was held throughout the Northwest Territories with a majority of the residents voting in favour and the federal government gave a conditional agreement seven months later. The land claims agreement was decided in September 1992 and ratified by nearly 85% of the voters in Nunavut. On July 9, 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.
