District of Ungava
 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification.(April 2009) |
| District of Ungava | |
|---|---|
| District ofNorth-West Territories | |
| 1895–1920 | |
 District of Ungava at its creation in 1895, superimposed over a modern-day map of Canada. | |
| History | |
• Established | 1895 |
• Disestablished | 1920 |
| Today part of | Newfoundland and Labrador,Nunavut,Quebec |
TheDistrict of Ungavawas a regional administrative district ofCanada'sNorthwest Territoriesfrom 1895 to 1920, although it effectively ceased operation in 1912. It covered the northern portion of what is todayQuebec,the interior ofLabrador,and the offshore islands to the west and north of Quebec, which are now part ofNunavut.
The name "Ungava" is ofInuktitutorigin, meaning "towards the open water". It is believed to be in reference to the lands inhabited by the UngavaInuit,who lived at the mouth of theArnaud Riverwhich flows intoUngava Bay.[1]
Political history[edit]
When created in 1895, the District of Ungava covered all of modern-daynorthern Quebec,the interior of modern-day Labrador, and all the islands inJames Bay,theHudson Strait,Ungava Bay, and the eastern side ofHudson Bay.
Ungava's southern continental boundaries initially ranged as far south asLake Timiskaming,well below James Bay on the modern Ontario/Quebec border. Note, however, that a dispute over the location of the boundary between Canada and Labrador (a dependency of theDominion of Newfoundland) meant both Canada and Newfoundland claimed the far eastern portion of Ungava, an area shown in shaded red on the accompanying maps. This boundary dispute would not be settled during the time the district of Ungava was in existence.
At the time of its creation, Ungava covered over one million square kilometres (390,000 sq mi), although just under 15% of its area was also claimed by Newfoundland. However, just three years later with the adoption of theQuebec Boundary Extension Act, 1898,the southernmost portion of the District of Ungava (excluding offshore islands) was transferred by theParliament of Canadato Quebec. All told, the act transferred approximately 250,000 square kilometres (97,000 sq mi) of Ungava to Quebec, the majority of which now lies in the modern-dayJamésieregion of the province. After the transfer was complete, the mainland area of the District of Ungava reached no further south than the mouth of theEastmain River—about halfway down James Bay, as shown on the accompanying map.
With theQuebec Boundaries Extension Act, 1912,all of Ungava's remaining continental land was transferred to Quebec. The almost entirely uninhabited offshore islands of Ungava (over 1,500 of them) were not officially transferred to theDistrict of Keewatinin theNorthwest Territoriesuntil 1920, at which point the District of Ungava (which had not functioned in any administrative capacity for eight years) formally ceased to exist.
Population[edit]
The 1901 census of Canada records 843 people living in the Ungava district. However, one census taker of the time notes that for the Ungava trading post ofGreat Whale River,there was extreme difficulty in making an accurate count of the area's population, due to the nomadic nature of its residents, as well as their extreme isolation. The official 1901 census count for Great Whale River numbers 216, but the census taker notes of this figure: "I should say it does not represent one-third of the Eskimos, but I am sending on as many (names) as I could obtain."[2]A similar case could be made for the 1901 census figures for Ungava as a whole, giving the district an effective population of upwards of 3,000.
The1911 Census of Canadaenumerated only two population centres in Ungava:Nitchequon,which had a population of 62, andCharlton Island,the southernmost of the offshore islands in James Bay, which had a population of 27. No other parts of Ungava were listed in the 1911 census records, although it is reasonable to assume an overall 1911 population similar to 1901.
The Ungava district was largely inhabited by theaboriginalCree,Innu(called "Montagnais" by French people),Naskapi,andInuit.The northernmost inhabited area of the district,Akpatok Islandin Ungava Bay, was infamous for its widespread cannibalism, which ended around 1900 as the inhabitants moved to the mainland.[3]
Post-district history[edit]
In 1927, the long-standing dispute over the location of the boundary betweenLabradorand the former District of Ungava (by then part of Quebec) was taken to the arbitration of the BritishJudicial Committee of the Privy Council,which ruled in favour of Newfoundland. This means that Ungava's former continental territory is now split between Quebec and the modern-day province ofNewfoundland and Labrador,with the Quebec portion falling within the administrative regions ofNord-du-QuébecandCôte-Nord.The offshore islands of the former District of Ungava remained part of the Northwest Territories until the creation ofNunavutin 1999.
The name "Ungava" was revived as a political district with the creation of theprovincial riding of Ungavain 1981. This Quebec riding has similar (though not exactly identical) boundaries with the original 1895 Ungava district—notably, it does not extend into Labrador, nor into the offshore islands that are now part of Nunavut.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^"Ungava Peninsula".Archived fromthe originalon 2012-05-23.Retrieved2012-05-18.
- ^"1901 Census Transcription Project @ Automated Genealogy".
- ^"Archived copy".Archived fromthe originalon 2015-09-24.Retrieved2012-05-17.
{{cite web}}:CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
Further reading[edit]
- Ballantyne, R. M.Ungava, A Tale of Esquimaux Land.London: J.M. Dent, 1908.
- Bergerud, A. T., Stuart N. Luttich, and Lodewijk Camps.The Return of Caribou to Ungava.McGill-Queen's native and northern series, 50. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007.ISBN978-0-7735-3233-5
- Chown B, and M Lewis. 1956. "The Blood Group Genes of the Cree Indians and the Eskimos of the Ungava District of Canada".American Journal of Physical Anthropology.14, no. 2: 215–24.
- Dana, Leo Paul 2010, "Nunavik, Arctic Quebec: Where Co-operatives Supplement Entrepreneurship," Global Business and Economics Review 12 (1/2), January 2010, pp. 42–71.
- Harper, Francis.The Friendly Montagnais and Their Neighbors in the Ungava Peninsula.Lawrence: University of Kansas, 1964.
- Harper, Francis.Birds of the Ungava Peninsula.Lawrence, Kan: University of Kansas, 1958.
- Lajoie, Paul G.Exploratory Soil Survey of the Fort Chimo District (Ungava Bay, Quebec).Ottawa: Experimental Farms Service, Canada Dept. of Agriculture, 1954.
- Murray, W. H. H.Mamelons, and Ungava, A Legend of the Saguenay.Boston: De Wolfe, Fiske & Co, 1890.
- Power, Geoffrey.The Salmon of Ungava Bay.[Montreal]: Arctic Institute of North America, 1969.
- Turner, Lucien M.Ethnology of the Ungava District, Hudson Bay Territory.Classics of Smithsonian anthropology. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001.ISBN1-56098-965-3
- Twomey, Arthur C., and Nigel Herrick.Needle to the North, The Story of an Expedition to Ungava and the Belcher Islands.Houghton Mifflin, 1942.