Arctic Bay
| Arctic Bay Ikpiarjuk ᐃᒃᐱᐊᕐᔪᒃ |
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 View over Arctic Bay |
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| Location in Nunavut | |||
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| State : |
 Canada
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| Territory : | Nunavut | ||
| Region: | Qikiqtaaluk | ||
| Coordinates : | 73 ° 2 ′ N , 85 ° 9 ′ W | ||
| Height : | 31 m | ||
| Residents : | 690 (as of 2006) | ||
| Time zone : | Eastern Time ( UTC − 5 ) | ||
| Postal code : | X0A 0A0 | ||
Arctic Bay , Nunavut Territory , is a settlement with about 760 inhabitants (91% of them Inuit) located on the Borden Peninsula in the north of Baffin Island directly on the Admiralty Inlet . The Inuktitut name is Ikpiarjuk (more rarely Tununirusiq), "pocket". The distance to the capital Iqaluit , to which there is a scheduled flight connection ( First Air Ltd.) from Nanisivik Airport , is around 1,225 kilometers.
Paleo-Eskimos of the pre-Dorset culture were probably the first people to come to this region around 4,000 years ago. Captain William Adams was the first non-Inuk to reach the bay in 1872 with his whaling ship “Arctic”. The next was researcher Joseph E. Bernier , who wintered here on the government steamer "Arctic" in 1910/11. The Hudson's Bay Company opened a trading post in 1926, but closed it again the following year. It was reopened in 1936, when Inuit originally from the Pangnirtung and Cape Dorset area were relocated from the unsuccessful HBC trading post Dundas Harbor to here. In the 1930s there was a Catholic mission station for a short time. In 1937 an Anglican mission station was established; However, it was also closed again ten years later after the shooting accident death of missionary John Turner. The first school opened in 1972.
On the northern part of the Borden Peninsula, where Arctic Bay is located, mountains rise up to an altitude of 1,300 meters. The local mountain King George V Mountain dominates the southeast of the settlement with a height of 564 meters. A 21 kilometer long road connects the place with Nanisivik , a mining settlement that was built in the early 1970s and abandoned in 2004.
Land animals are rare in the Arctic Bay region; at best, polar bears can often be found on the Borden peninsula. In the summer, however, Arctic Bay is a whale watcher's paradise; especially the narwhal then frequented the Admiralty Inlet.
literature
- Miriam Dewar (Ed.): The Nunavut Handbook: Traveling in Canada's Arctic . Ayaya Marketing & Communications, Iqaluit / Ottawa 2004, ISBN 0-9736754-0-3 (English).
