NUNAVUT

[NOO-na-voot]
Which means "Our Land" in Inuktitut, the Inuit language

Canadian-American Center - University of Maine - 154 College Ave Orono, ME 04473 - (207) 581-4220

FAST FACTS

One incredible fact to start with:
Flying in 1985 over Axel Heiberg Island (an island at Longitude 80, west of Ellesmere Island), a geological survey team was amazed to see a hillside dotted with large tree stumps. They were so well preserved they could be sawed, split and burned. Scientists have since dated the fossil forest at 45 million years old and have excavated alligator bones, evidence that the Arctic climate was once similar to the Florida Everglades today.

SIZE:

Area of Nunavut: 1,900,000 sq km
Area of Canada: 9,970,610 sq km

HOW FAR NORTH?

Grise Fiord: 77 (degrees latitude)
Coppermine: 68
Iqaluit: 64
Rankin Inlet: 63
    SOME COMPARISONS
Point Barrow, Alaska: 71
Arctic Circle: 67
        Ottawa: 45
        Bangor: 45
        Stockholm: 59

POPULATION:

Population of Nunavut: 25,000 (approx)
Inuit population of Nunavut: 80+%
Population of Canada: 30,000,000 (approx)
Inuit population in Canada: 25,000 (approx)
COMMUNITY POPULATIONS
     Iqaluit: 4,000
     Rankin Inlet: 2,000
     Coppermine: 1,200
     Bathurst Inlet: 18 according to 1996 census; "however, it's really 27 when everyone's at home", says Lyn Hancock

LARGEST COMMUNITY:

Iqaluit [E-KAL-OO-WEET] which means "place of fish", is the largest community in Nunavut, and is the capital of the territory. It is located about 2,000 km from Ottawa on Baffin Island. It experiences 24 hours of daylight a day in June and 6 hours a day in December.

MOST NORTHERN COMMUNITY

Grist Fiord is the northernmost community, located on the southern end of Ellesmere Island. It has a population of 130 people who experience 24 hours of daylight per day in June and round-the-clock darkness in December.

KILOMETRES OF HIGHWAY: 20
Because so few roads exist in Nunavut, residents of the territory travel by airplane five times more often than most other Canadians.

NATURAL RESOURCES
Lead, zinc. gold, oil, natural gas, diamonds

MANUFACTURED GOODS
Food products such as packaged fish and meat, doors, windows

PERCENTAGE OF WORKERS PER JOB SECTOR
Government: 49%
Services: 38%
Construction: 6%
Mining: 4%
Fishing and Trapping: 2%
Manufacturing: 1%

WILDLIFE THRIVING IN NUNAVUT
Land mammals: caribou, muskoxen, barren-ground grizzlies, wolves, wolverines, foxes, hares, lemmings
Marine mammals: seals, walruses, whales, polar bears (considered a marine mammal because their primary hunting and dwelling preferences are sea ice and water).
Birds: ravens, gyrfalcon, ptarmigan, snowy owl, tundra peregrine falcons, ivory gull, jaeger. thick-billed murres, northern fulmars, black-legged kittiwakes, black guillemots, eider, oldsquaw duck, northern pintail, scoter, loon, geese plovers, turnstones, sandpipers and phalaropes.

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Information on this page from the Nunavut Planning Commission web site, the www.arctictravel.com web site, and from the book Nunavut by Lyn Hancock, one of Fitzhenry & Whiteside's "Hello Canada" series.

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