The Land

On April 1, 1999, the map of Canada changed with the birth of the new territory of Nunavut. Nunavut means "our land" in Inuktitut, the Inuit language. It is a vast territory - larger than Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec combined - that contains one fifth of Canada's land. This is the first major change to the map of Canada since Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949.

Nunavut's lands are made up of the central and eastern portions of the Northwest Territories (NWT). To the Inuit people, this land, their ancestral home for thousands of years, has always been Nunavut. The idea for the territory with its own government was articulated by Inuit leaders in the 1970s.