Inukjuak

History

The many archeological sites near Inukjuak indicate that the area has long been inhabited by the Inuit. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Révillon Frères company set up a fur trading post in Inukjuak, originally called Port Harrison. To compete with them, the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) established a post in 1920. In the same year, Révillon Frères paid for Robert J. Flaherty to make Nanook of the North which was filmed between August 1920 and August 1921 in the area, including many scenes in the village which can be recognized at the present time The HBC bought out Révillon Frères in 1936 and continued its trade monopoly here until 1958. In 1927 an Anglican mission was established, followed by a post office and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) detachment in 1935, a nursing station in 1947, and a school in 1951. From this time on the Inuit started to give up their traditional nomadic way of life and live permanently in the community. A cooperative store was formed in 1962. Inukjuak was legally established as a municipality in 1980. In 1953, the Canadian government controversially relocated some of the area's inhabitants to Resolute and Grise Fiord—then in the Northwest Territories, but now part of Nunavut. At the time, the relocation was described as a humanitarian gesture to save the lives of starving native people and enable them to continue a subsistence lifestyle. It was, in reality, a forced migration as part of a plan to establish a Canadian presence in the High Arctic and assert its sovereignty with human flagpoles. This relocation caused families to be split up and relocated persons faced hardships in the much more severe conditions of the far north. Artist Leah Nuvalinga Qumaluk was born in Inukjuak in 1934.

Geography

Despite its bitterly cold climate, Inukjuak is actually not very far north – especially for an area above the tree line. It is by North American standards located far south of warm-summer inland areas like Yellowknife and Fairbanks where vegetation thrives. Being on the 58th parallel it is located closer to the equator than cities like Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki and Saint Petersburg, all of which have far gentler year-round climates. It is also on the same parallel as the extremely mild northern tip of mainland Scotland (Thurso). With the North American population centres being further south due to the cold climate it still lies far north of provincial centres Montreal and Quebec City, being located in the distant wilderness from the majority of Quebec's population. It also lies at a distance from Nunavik's largest population centre Kuujjuaq that is on a similar latitude but further to the east.

Most-observed species

• Canada Goose (canadensis Group)

  Branta canadensis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  104
• American herring gull, Smithsonian Gull

  Larus smithsonianus Coues, 1862 · Aves
  102
• Common Raven

  Corvus corax Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  80
• White-crowned Sparrow

  Zonotrichia leucophrys (J.R.Forster, 1772) · Aves
  70
• Glaucous Gull

  Larus hyperboreus Gunnerus, 1767 · Aves
  52
• Great Black-backed Gull

  Larus marinus Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  48
• American Pipit

  Anthus rubescens (Tunstall, 1771) · Aves
  48
• Savannah Sparrow

  Passerculus sandwichensis (J.F.Gmelin, 1789) · Aves
  38