Nunavut is an immense territory of tundra, plateaux and mountains that includes the Arctic archipelago: a hidden world until the advent of air travel.
This beautiful land is Canada’s newest territory, splitting from the Northwest Territories in 1999 as a self-ruling Inuit community. The territory covers about one fifth of Canada’s land mass and stretches from Hudson Bay in the south to the Arctic islands in the north. The famed Northwest Passage wends its way through the northern islands and consequently this was the theatre for many historic Arctic voyages. Nunavut, meaning “our land” in the Inuktitut language, is home to 28 Inuit communities, of which the largest, with a population of 6,500, is Iqaluit.
Accessible only by air and sea, this region is rich with the fascinating culture of the Inuit communities, the flowers of the arctic tundra and the dancing celestial phenomenon of the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights.
A plethora of wildlife inhabits these desolate lands, with polar bears, arctic foxes, whales, narwhals, walrus, musk oxen and herds of caribou in abundance. Bathed through the summer, by the light of a midnight sun, Nunavut is a unique blend of culture, wilderness and wildlife.