Place:Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada

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NameIqaluit
Alt namesFrobisher Baysource: Wikipedia
TypeCommunity
Coordinates63.75°N 68.5°W
Located inNunavut, Canada
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Iqaluit ( ; , ;[1] ) is the capital of the Canadian territory of Nunavut, its largest community, and its only city. It was known as Frobisher Bay from 1942 to 1987, after the large bay on the coast on which the city is situated. In 1987, its traditional Inuktitut name was restored.

In 1999, Iqaluit was designated the capital of Nunavut after the division of the Northwest Territories into two separate territories. Before this event, Iqaluit was a small city and not well known outside the Canadian Arctic or Canada, with population and economic growth highly limited. This is due to the city's isolation and heavy dependence on expensive imported supplies, as the city, like the rest of Nunavut, has no road or rail, and only has ship connections for part of the year to the rest of Canada. The city has a polar climate, influenced by the cold deep waters of the Labrador Current just off Baffin Islandthis makes the city of Iqaluit cold, although it is well south of the Arctic Circle.

As of the 2021 Canadian census, the population was 7,429[2] (population centre: 6,991), a decrease of 4.0 per cent from the 2016 census. Iqaluit has the lowest population of any capital city in Canada. Inhabitants of Iqaluit are called Iqalummiut (singular: Iqalummiuq).

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Iqaluit has been a traditional fishing location used by Inuit and their predecessors, the Paleo-Eskimo (Dorset culture) and Thule, for thousands of years. The name, Iqaluit, comes from Inuktitut Iqaluit (ᐃᖃᓗᐃᑦ) which means place of many fish.

World War II resulted in an influx of non-Inuit to the area in 1942, when the United States built Frobisher Bay Air Base there, on a long-term lease from the Government of Canada, in order to provide a stop-over and refuelling site for the short-range aircraft being ferried to Europe to support the war effort. Iqaluit's first permanent resident was Nakasuk, an Inuk guide who helped United States Army Air Forces planners to choose a site with a large flat area suitable for a landing strip. The wartime airstrip was known as Crystal Two, was part of the Crimson Route and operates today as Iqaluit Airport.

It had long been used as a campsite and fishing spot by the Inuit, who called it Iqaluit – "place of many fish" in Inuktitut. The US and Canadian authorities named it Frobisher Bay, after the name of the body of water it borders.


In 1949, after the war, the Hudson's Bay Company moved its south Baffin operations to the neighbouring valley of Niaqunngut, officially called Apex, in order to use the airfield. In the mid-1950s, the population of Frobisher Bay increased rapidly during the construction of the Distant Early Warning Line (DEW line), a system of defensive radar stations—see North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).

Hundreds of mostly non-Inuit construction workers, military personnel, and administrative staff moved into the community, and several hundred Inuit followed, to take advantage of the access to jobs and medical care provided by the base operations. By 1957, 489 of the town's 1,200 residents were reported to be Inuit. After 1959, the Canadian government established permanent services at Frobisher Bay, including full-time doctors, a school, and social services. The Inuit population grew rapidly in response, as the government encouraged Inuit to settle permanently in communities supported by government services.

Naval Radio Station (NRS) Frobisher Bay (HMCS Frobisher Bay), callsign CFI, was established in July 1954 as a result of the closure of NRS Chimo, Quebec. Station CFI was part of the Supplementary Radio network. Because of its remoteness and size, it was very expensive to operate. Renamed CFS Frobisher Bay in 1966, advancing technology eventually forced the closure of CFI later that year.

The American military left Iqaluit in 1963, as their development of the intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) diminished the strategic value of the DEW line and Arctic airbases. Canada continued to operate an administrative and logistical centre for much of the eastern Arctic at Frobisher Bay. In 1964, the first local elections were held for a community council, and in 1979 for the first mayor. The founding of the Gordon Robertson Educational Centre, now Inuksuk High School, in the early 1970s at Iqaluit confirmed the government's commitment to the community as an administrative centre. At the time of its founding, this was the sole high school operating in what constituted more than one-seventh of Canadian territory.

On 1 January 1987, the name of the municipality was changed from "Frobisher Bay" to "Iqaluit" – aligning official usage with the name that the Inuit population had always used. (Many documents were made that referred to Iqaluit as Frobisher Bay for several years after 1987). In the non-binding 1995 Nunavut capital plebiscite, held 11 December, the residents of what would become the new territory selected Iqaluit (over Rankin Inlet) to serve as the future capital. On 19 April 2001, it was designated a city.

Canada designated Iqaluit as the host city for the 2010 meeting of the Group of Seven finance ministers, held on 5–6 February. The requirements for the international meeting strained the northern communications technology infrastructure and required supplemental investment.

Timeline

  • 1576 – Englishman Martin Frobisher sails into Frobisher Bay believing he has found the westward route to China. He held the first Anglican church service in North America here.
  • 1861 – Charles Francis Hall, an American, camps at the Sylvia Grinnell River and explores the waters of Koojesse Inlet, which he names after his Inuit guide.
  • 1942 – The United States Army Air Forces selects this area as the site of a major air base to support war efforts in the United Kingdom and Europe.
  • 1949 – The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) moves its trading post from Ward Inlet to nearby Apex.
  • 1955 – Frobisher Bay becomes the centre for United States/Canada DEW Line construction operations. Many Inuit continue to settle here for local services.
  • 1958 – Telephone exchange service established by Bell Canada.
  • 1963 – United States military move out, resulting in some population loss.
  • 1964 – First community council formed; population of Frobisher Bay is 900.
  • 1970 – Frobisher Bay officially recognized as a settlement.
  • 1974 – Settlement of Frobisher Bay gains village status.
  • 1976 – Inuit present a proposal for a separate Nunavut Territory to the Federal government.
  • 1979 – First mayor elected, Bryan Pearson.
  • 1980 – Frobisher Bay designated as a town.
  • 1982 – Government of Canada agrees in principle to the creation of Nunavut.
  • 1987 – Frobisher Bay is renamed as Iqaluit, its original Inuktitut name meaning "place of (many) fish".
  • 1993 – The Nunavut Land Claims Agreement is signed in Iqaluit.
  • 1995 – Nunavut residents select Iqaluit as capital of the new territory
  • 1 April 1999 – The Territory of Nunavut is established.
  • 19 April 2001 – Iqaluit is chartered as a city.
  • 2002 – Iqaluit, along with Nuuk, Greenland, co-host the first jointly hosted Arctic Winter Games; the Arctic Winter Games Arena was constructed in Iqaluit for the event.
  • 5 February 2010 – Canada designates Iqaluit to host the finance meeting as part of the 2010 Group of Seven summit.
  • 29 July 2022 - Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Iqaluit to meet with a group of former residential school alumni on his penitential apostolic visit to Canada. He will be the first Pope to visit anywhere in Nunavut.

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This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Iqaluit, Nunavut. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.