WikiPortallus: Nunavut.html

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 only 29,474¹ 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 nearly twice the population.⁶

Nunavut means 'our land' in Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit. Its inhabitants are called Nunavummiut, singular Nunavummiuq.^{citation needed}

Geography

The Territory 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, a border with Manitoba to the south of the Nunavut mainland, and a tiny land border with Newfoundland and Labrador on Killiniq Island. It also shares aquatic borders with the provinces of Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba and with Greenland.

History

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.

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.⁹ 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.^{citation needed}

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 conditions¹⁰ but were forced to stay.¹¹ Forty years later, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples issued a report entitled The High Arctic Relocation: A Report on the 1953-55 Relocation.¹² The government paid compensation but did not apologize.¹³ The whole story is told in Melanie McGrath's The Long Exile: A Tale of Inuit Betrayal and Survival in the High Arctic.¹⁴

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 Act⁵ and the Nunavut Act⁴ were passed by the Canadian Parliament, and the transition was completed on April 1, 1999.¹⁵

Demographics

As of the 2006 Census the population of Nunavut was 29,474,¹ with 24,640 people identifying themselves as Inuit (83.6% of the total population), 100 as First Nations (0.34%), 130 Métis (0.44%) and 4,410 as non-aboriginal (14.96%).¹⁶

Language

In his 2000 commissioned report (Aajiiqatigiingniq Language of Instruction Research Paper) to the Nunavut Department of Education, Ian Martin of York University states that a "long-term threat to Inuit language from English is found everywhere, and current school language policies and practices on language are contributing to that threat" if Nunavut schools follow the Northwest Territories model. He provides a 20 year language plan to create a "fully functional bilingual society, in Inuktitut and English" by 2020. The plan provides different models, including:

The 2006 Canadian census showed a population of 29,474. Of the 29,025 singular responses to the census question concerning 'mother tongue' the most commonly reported languages were:

There were also 260 responses of both English and a 'non-official language' (mainly Inuktitut); 20 of both French and a 'non-official language; 20 of both English and French; and about 140 people who either did not respond to the question, or reported multiple non-official languages, or else gave some other unenumerated response. Only English and French were counted as official languages in the census. Nunavut's official languages are shown in bold. Figures shown are for the number of single-language responses and the percentage of total single-language responses.¹⁸

Religion

Economy

Government

The territory's first legislature was dissolved on January 16, 2004, with an election shortly thereafter. See Nunavut general election, 2004. As of 2007, Nunavut is in its second government.

Faced by criticism of his policies, former Premier Paul Okalik set up an advisory council of eleven elders, whose function it is to help incorporate "Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit" (Inuit culture and traditional knowledge, often referred to in English as "IQ") into the territory's political and governmental decisions.

Owing to Nunavut's vast size, the stated goal of the territorial government has been to decentralize governance beyond the region's capital. Three regions—Kitikmeot, Kivalliq and Qikiqtaaluk/Baffin—are the basis for more localized administration, although they lack autonomous governments of their own.

The territory has an annual budget of C$700 million, provided almost entirely by the federal government. Former Prime Minister Paul Martin designated support for Northern Canada as one of his priorities for 2004, with an extra $500 million to be divided among the three territories.

In 2005, the government of Nunavut collaborated with the federal government and the technology firm SSI Micro to launch Qiniq, a unique network which uses satellite delivery to provide broadband Internet access to 25 communities in Nunavut. As a result, the territory was named one of the world's "Smart 21 Communities" in 2005 by the Intelligent Community Forum, a worldwide organization which honours innovation in broadband technologies.

Licence plates

The Nunavut vehicle licence plate, originally created for the Northwest Territories in the 1970s, which is shaped like a polar bear, has long been famous worldwide for its unique design. Nunavut opted to use the same plate design in 1999 when it became a separate territory.

People from Nunavut

Susan Aglukark is an Inuit singer and song writer. She has released six albums and has won several Juno Awards. She blends the Inuktitut and English languages with contemporary pop music arrangements to tell the stories of her people, the Inuit of Arctic.

Nunavut.html

Contents

Geography

History

Demographics

Language

Religion

Economy

Government

Licence plates

People from Nunavut

See also

Footnotes

References

Further reading

External links