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Iqaluit
boasts a multitude of events and activities to
ensure your visit is a fun-filled, learning
experience. Following below are a few of the
attractions you can visit and the activities you
can look forward to.
- Bird watching - Dog sledding
- Cross country skiing - Snowmobiling
- Wildlife viewing - Photography
- Hiking - Mountain climbing
- Wild flowers, tundra
- Sylvia Grinnell Territorial Park
- Qaummaarviit Territorial Park
- Katannilik Territorial Park
- Sport fishing for Arctic Char
- Sea Kayaking - Helicopter sights
- Art galleries featuring fabulous
soapstone carvings, caribou antler carvings,
walrus tusk ivory carvings
- Original Inuit prints - Inuit carvers
- Historic St. Jude's Cathedral
- Toonik Tyme Festival (end of April)
- Sightseeing flights over spectacular
Baffin Island ice caps and fjords
- Inuksuk Arts - craft stores for
hand-sewn mitts, boots and clothing made
from seal, caribou or arctic hare
- Performances of traditional Inuit Drum
Dancers and Throat Singers
- Northern "Night Life" in the local bar
- Spectacular Aurora Borealis, also known
as the "Northern Lights"
Nuavut Statistics
- Square Kilometres: 1,900,000
- Population: 27,146 (1999)
- Capital:
Iqaluit, NU
- Time: Central Standard Time (GMT
-7) Daylight Savings Time is from the first
Sunday in April to last Sunday in October.
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Nunavut is the largest and newest of the
territories of Canada; it was separated officially
from the vast Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999
via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims
Agreement Act, though the actual boundaries were
established in 1993. The creation of Nunavut marked
the first major change to Canada's map since the
incorporation of the new province of Newfoundland
(including Labrador) in 1949.
The capital of Nunavut is Iqaluit (formerly
Frobisher Bay) on Baffin Island in the east. Other
major communities include Rankin Inlet and Cambridge
Bay. Nunavut also includes Ellesmere Island in the
north and the east of Victoria Island in the west.
Nunavut is both the least populated and the largest
of the provinces and territorities of Canada. It has
a population of only about 29,300 spread over an
area the size of Western Europe. If Nunavut were a
sovereign nation, it would be the least densely
populated in the world: nearby Greenland, for
example, has almost the same area and twice the
population.
Nunavut means 'our land' in Inuktitut, the language
of the Inuit. Its inhabitants are called
Nunavummiut, singular Nunavummiuq. Along with
Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, English, and French are also
official languages.
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.
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.
Nunavut's small and sparse population makes it
unlikely the territory will be granted provincial
status in the foreseeable future, although this may
change if the Yukon, which is only marginally more
populous, becomes a province.
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 (including the Belcher Islands) which were
formerly attached to the Northwest Territories. If
Nunavut were treated as a single country, the area
would be ranked 13th, after Democratic Republic of
the Congo.
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, although there is a marker (albeit
an out of date one) at the point, and some have made
the trek. Nunavut's borders were influenced by the
shape of an Inukshuk a symbol of Inuit heritage.
The highest point in Nunavut is Barbeau Peak on
Ellesmere Island at a height of 2616 m (8583 ft).
Arctic tundra covers virtually all of Nunavut, the
only exceptions being a tiny area in the extreme
southwest near the "four corners" alluded to above,
where a marginal taiga forest exists, and small
zones of permanent ice caps, found on some of the
larger Arctic Islands (especially Baffin, Devon and
Ellesmere) at sites having a relatively high
elevation.
Nunavut's vegetation is partially composed of rare
berries, lichens, arctic willows, moss, tough grass,
and small willow shrubs.
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Background:
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A
land of vast distances and rich natural resources,
Canada became a self-governing dominion in 1867
while retaining ties to the British crown.
Economically and technologically the nation has
developed in parallel with the US, its neighbor to
the south across an unfortified border. Its
paramount political problem continues to be the
relationship of the province of Quebec, with its
French-speaking residents and unique culture, to the
remainder of the country. |
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Population:
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32,507,874 (July 2004 est.) |
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Languages:
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English 59.3% (official), French 23.2% (official),
other 17.5% |
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Currency:
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Canadian dollar (CAD)
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Currency code:
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CAD
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Exchange rates:
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Canadian dollars per US dollar - 1.4 (2003), 1.57
(2002), 1.55 (2001), 1.49 (2000), 1.49 (1999) |
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