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Nunavut came into being on April 1, 1999, as Canada's third territory (Canada has ten provinces and three territories). The technical translation of nunavut is simply "our land." The emotional, spiritual, deeper meaning of nunavut or nunavun is "our homeland." The unspoken meaning stresses "home." The Economy
These days, even full-time hunters need some cash for things like fuel, buying snowmobiles and other equipment, so they may work a little as carvers or tourist guides to earn some cash, or apply for social assistance from the government. The main sectors in Nunavut's relatively young wage economy are, in order of importance:
The subsistence economy is not typically measured in Gross National Product, yet the dollar value of the subsistence economy is astounding. Consider that the replacement-cost value of country food harvested in Nunavut is estimated at a minimum of $30 million, or at least equal to the cost of food imports from Southern Canada. Consider, too, that country food is generally much more nutritious Then there is the value of byproducts of the hunt that help to drive Nunavut's arts and crafts industry. There is caribou antler for carvings, narwhal and walrus ivory for carvings and jewelry, and sealskins for murals and small garments and toys. While Nunavut's arts and crafts industry is currently in a slump, it is nevertheless worth many millions of dollars per year to Inuit. We must consider, too, that clothing made from animal skins has both a replacement value and a survival value — nothing has yet surpassed the insulating efficiency of caribou clothing.Finally, there is also an important cash-economy element to the subsistence economy. Cash revenues are earned from the subsistence economy by selling sealskins within and between communities as the byproduct of the seal hunt, and by selling arctic char, caribou, or whatever has been hunted. Some of that money is needed to buy gas, hunting equipment and supplies to finance the cost of future hunts. Of 500 pounds of frozen arctic char piled on a qamutik (a sled pulled by a dogteam or snowmobile), the hunter may sell 100 pounds of the fish for, say, $1.75 per pound. This $175 will cover the cost of harvesting the other 400 pounds. But that 400 pounds of fish has a replacement value — or real value — of $2,000 as food on the table (hamburger or chicken at the local Inuit Co-op or Northern store would cost the hunter at least $5 per pound). Recognition of this fundamental reality is one reason the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (NLCA) created Nunavut's resource-management bodies. The NLCA and territorial government help provide for outpost camps, hunter-support programs, elder and youth conferences, income reform and more, ensuring that subsistence uses of wildlife will always take priority over commercial or tourist quotas when conservation is required. The importance of maintaining the subsistence economy is nowhere more tragically obvious than in the decline in the early 1970s of the eastern Arctic seal hunt, and the dire social effects of its collapse. What many of the animal-rights activists responsible for the market's decline choose not to see is that the subsistence economy represents a relationship of man with the natural world that has spun a complex web of cultural beliefs, values, and attitudes that can sustain ecosystems that include man. The subsistence economy is the tie that binds Inuit to the natural world, and all over the world it has been shown that "to use is to protect." The subsistence economy has become a rare treasure. Hunting is about food on the table, but it is also about respect for the land, and building and maintaining ties with kin groups and with fellow residents. The subsistence economy is also the wellspring of traditional knowledge, or IQ (Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit): once dismissed as the outdated opposite of good western science, it is now recognized as having value for aboriginal and non-aboriginal people alike in the attempt to understand how life interrelates on the tundra or in the sea. Nunavut will never see Ford plants and other big manufacturers. Yet the new territory may remain one of the few places on Earth where people successfully straddle tradition and innovation, "the land" and the Internet.
The People Inuit,
their ancestors and earlier inhabitants have occupied parts of Nunavut
for 5,000 years. Written records of Nunavut and its p There are three distinct aboriginal groups in Canada : -
North American Indians (population: 554,290) The Métis people originated in the mid-1600s as children of Indian mothers (Cree, Ojibwa and Salteaux women), and French and Scottish fur trader fathers. When western Canada was later explored by Europeans, Scandinavian, Irish and English bloodlines became part of Métis heritage too. The terms "aboriginal" or "native" people apply to North American Indians, Métis and Inuit. However, the term "First Nations" refers only to Indians.
Climate and landscape Nunavut's vastness encompasses many regional variations of arctic climate, landforms and ecosystems, from the flat barren lands and shallow tundra lakes of western Nunavut to the majestic fiords, mountain ranges and icebergs of eastern Nunavut. Despite frigid winter temperatures, the thermometer has climbed as high as 43° C in Kugluktuk during the summer, too, and for a few short weeks in July and August, tiny colorful flowers carpet Nunavut's tundra.
Wildlife Caribou, seals, walrus, whales, arctic char, and muskoxen are some of the wildlife that form the basis of Nunavut's traditional subsistence — hunting and fishing — economy (40 per cent of adult Inuit residents do not participate in Nunavut's wage-based economy). Ptarmigan, gyrfalcons, peregrine falcons, geese, snowy owls, ivory gulls and other species of birds make the Arctic their home too, along with huge breeding colonies of seabirds.
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Nunavut
differs from other territories and provinces in Canada because the
subsistence economy here is
as important as the wage economy.
Being in the subsistence economy means working to provide your family
with everything they need to live — food, clothing and shelter
— without getting paid for it. For example, a hunter or fisherman
who hunts caribou, seals, whales, walrus, and fish all day is catching
food to feed his family. At the same time, parts of the animal that
can't be eaten will be turned into other useful things. Skins will
be dried to be sewn into clothing later, and so on.
Government
—
accounts for about 39 per cent of all jobs. There were 1,900 territorial
jobs in place on April 1, 1999 and that figure will rise as more
jobs that are necessary to run the new government of Nunavut are
created and filled.
eople
exist from the time European explorers and traders began to visit
in the 16th century. Contact with those Europeans influenced Inuit
culture and the Inuit nomadic way of life.