Arviat

Arviat (formerly called Eskimo Point until 1 June 1989) is a predominantly Inuit hamlet located on the western shore of Hudson Bay in the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut Canada. Arviat (“place of the bowhead whale”) is derived from the Inuktitut word arviq meaning “Bowhead Whale”.

Its population was 1,895 in the 2001 Census, of which 95% are Inuit. It is the southernmost community on the Nunavut mainland and is close to the geographical centre of Canada.

The only access is by air and by annual sea-lift, but the Nunavut government and the federal Senate member for Nunavut (Willie Adams) are investigating the possibility of a billion dollar highway from Churchill, Manitoba to Rankin Inlet, through Arviat.

The Hudson Bay Challenge sled-dog race was run from Churchill to Arviat for the first time in 2005.

The text in this article excerpt is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Arviat, Nunavut”.