The History of Pond Inlet, Nunavut

Pond Inlet is a community situated on the shores of north Baffin Island overlooking the waters of Eclipse Sound across to the towering mountains and glaciers of Bylot Island and Similik National Park. Pond Inlet, or Mittimatalik as it is known by local residents ("the place where Mittima is buried") is a place of local beauty and charm where the old traditions of Inuit culture attempt to meet and blend with that of the latest technology.

Pond Inlet is a predominantly Inuit community with a population of over 1,300, and is located at the top of Baffin Island. It is the largest of four hamlets in Canada that are above the 72nd parallel.


The beautiful scenery, mountain ranges viewable from all directions, icebergs, several dozen glaciers, explorable ice caves, and many grand and picturesque inlets have earned for Pond Inlet the name, "jewel of the Baffin." Across from Pond Inlet is the panoramic Bylot Island.



Bylot Island has been a bird sanctuary for many years. The wetlands of Bylot Island are the nesting grounds for over 30 species of birds. The world's largest colony of greater snow geese is found at Bylot Island.




Bylot Island has recently become part of the Similik National Park, one of three Canadian national parks created in 1999. Even in this age of deglaciation, the glaciers of Bylot Island and the northern Baffin region are awesome to behold from the air.





Icebergs are most often accessible from the community of Pond Inlet within walking distance, or a short snowmobile ride in winter, or boat ride in summer. Don't forget that at least 4/5 of these massive volumes of ice are below the surface.



This ancestral homeland of the North Baffin Inuit is rich in archaeology. Thule Inuit lived in the region for centuries and left many interesting sites. American and Scottish whalers frequently visited the area early in the 19th century.

Most whaling activity occurred in the Pond Inlet area from the early 1800's until the early 1900's. Whaling stations were established in Cumberland Sound and near Pond Inlet. A shore whaling station was established by the Scots at Albert Harbour near Pond Inlet in 1903. Everywhere, whaling had a profound impact on Inuit. It changed settlement patterns and provided Inuit with metal, tools, guns and whaleboats.

Changes in the traditional Inuit way of life and settlement patterns meant that instead of travelling inland to hunt in the summer, Inuit began to stay near the coast to work with the whalers. So while the whalers provided the Inuit with trade goods, a dependence on these trade goods began to develop and interfere with the traditional seasonal activities of the Inuit.


By the turn of the century, bowhead whale stocks had severely depleted, and whaling had evolved into what was known as free trading. Small trading companies, all British, bartered with Inuit from shore stations or ships that called in summer. Most whaling was then done by the Inuit, and oil was traded for goods when ships arrived in the sailing season. A Hudson's Bay Company trading post was established in Pond Inlet in 1921, and by 1926, all commercial whaling was over, leaving the Inuit with a different way of life in which many changes were for the worse.

Pond Inlet was established in 1921 with the contruction of a Hudson's Bay Company trading post. Until then, it was simply known as Mittimatalik ("the place where Mitimma is buried"). Only the elders remember now, but that was a time when Inuit still built sod houses for the winter. Winter storytelling centred on the legendary feats of the settlement's ancestors, such as the great Inuit migration to Greenland in the mid-19th century known as Qitlarssuaq.

Over the years, Pond Inlet added features such as a government radio station, a post of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Anglican and Roman Catholic missions were located here.




It is a tribute to Inuit traditional knowledge that their elders learned how to survive in this cold, Arctic climate with no gardens, no trees, or fuel to make large fires. The Inuit traditional lamp was the kudlik (qulliq), which is a crescent-shaped lamp carved from stone and fuelled by the oil from seal or whale blubber. A wick made of moss or Arctic cotton draws the oil to make a type of liquid candle, and the open stone lamp was used by the Inuit to light and heat their tents or igloos, or to melt snow for water, or to dry clothing and cook food.



Trade goods made it possible for the qulliq to eventually be replaced by the kerosene stove for heat and for cooking.


Inuit first started moving into Pond Inlet permanently in the 1960s so that their children could attend schools. The government has in recent years built houses of standard wood-frame construction that sit on gravel pads or steel piles.


Ulaajuk Elementary School--see building with Nunavut flag above--and Nasivvik Junior and High School), and adult education courses are available. The houses have running water and flush toilets, heating and insulation to ward off temperatures that can fall to -50 degrees celsius. Most homeowners rely on a variety of electronic appliances to simplify household chores. News of the outside world comes through television, radio, computer and telephone.

Pond Inlet is most readily accessible by airplane through a connection in Iqaluit, Nunavut's capital to the Pond Inlet Airport. The main airline is First Air.

Yet Pond Inlet's economy is largely service-based with government as the largest employer. Many government offices are in Pond Inlet, and the structure above is the dwelling place of the foreman for the construction of government offices and the infrastructure for government buildings and houses for government employees.

While all of this has led t0 a more comfortable lifestyle physically, it has also left Inuit more dependent on government programs and government largesse.

While Inuit are thankful for some of the changes, there is also a deep-seated sense that something has been lost, and for a longing for the preservation of the self-determination that they once knew. Inuit are proud to be a part of Canada, but there are also many things in their traditions inherited from their forefathers that have value that have been lost.

It is a timeless tribute to their ancestors that they had developed a traditional knowledge which enabled them to survive in this cold climate from time immemorial, and while materially there is no doubt that Inuit are better off, spiritually and culturally something has been taken from them. Many elders see their traditional knowledge as not holding its own with the whiteman's technology.

While technology can make for an easier life, it does not necessarily produce better human beings. The Inuit never overhunted or harmed the environment. These things along with sicknesses and diseases came with the European immigrants, and yet the government would now put quotas on their whale hunts, and restrict their traditional way of life in other ways.

Many Inuit feel that their traditional knowledge is every bit or even more reliable in assessing the animal patterns, and the cycles of their migration, than some of the "scientific" studies based on short-term research that the government sometimes uses to restrict their hunting and fishing.

Yet, unfortunately, their relationship with the federal government is still seen as too often paternalistic, or that of a parent to a child, rather than a relationship between equal partners.

Our western mindset in the South prides itself in our individualism, and our self-sufficiency in material things alone. Inuit traditional knowledge, on the other hand, can teach us all much about community, generosity, simple kindness, and a humble, gentle spirit.

It is wrong to see one people group as superior to another to the degree that one becomes dependent on the other. What we want to see is a greater inter-dependence in which different people groups can draw on the strengths of one another, and one group can be stronger where the other is weaker.

Every human life has value, worth and dignity, and there is much that we can learn from one another. We really do need one another. And when we travel to Nunavut, we need to respect the fact that while people in the South often see the North as "an unexplored frontier," to the Inuit, this is their "homeland" from time immemorial.