Iqaluit

Town in Baffin Region, capital of the Canadian territory of Nunavut; population (2001 est) 5,200. Iqaluit stands at the southeastern end of Baffin Island, on Frobisher Bay, 2,000 km/1,250 mi north of Montréal, Québec. In the 1950s many Inuit families were relocated to the area by the government; fishing, sealing, and handicraft production are economically important. Before 1987, the town was known as Frobisher Bay, after explorer Martin Frobisher who visited the area in 1576. It became capital of the territory when Nunavut was established as an Inuit homeland in 1999.

Iqaluit, whose name means ‘place of fish’ in Inuktitut, is a regional government and service centre, and a tourist base with air links to major Canadian cities and other Nunavut communities. During World War II, it was an airbase and radar station. Qaummaarviit Historic Park, the site of a 700-year-old Inuit fishing camp, is on an island 13 km/8 mi to the west.

Features Features include the Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum (1969) and the Sylvia Grinnell Territorial Park to the northeast. The town is home to the Nunavut Legislative Assembly, Baffin Regional Hospital, and part of Nunavut Arctic College (1984).