Pond Inlet

About Pond Inlet

The community of Pond Inlet is located in North eastern tip of Baffin Island on the south shore of eclipse Sound, facing the magnificent mountains of Bylot Island. At 72º 41' 81" North and 77º 58' 82" west, Pond Inlet is 644 km (400) miles above the Arctic Circle. The nearest communities are Arctic Bay to the west and Clyde River to the south. Iqaluit, the capital of the new Nunavut territory and the nearest major center, is located 1062 km (600 miles) to the south.

In 1984, a three meter strand of yarn was found at a Dorset site outside of Pond Inlet. Recently, this yarn has been identified as the same type spun from Arctic hare and goat hair used by the Norse that occupied Greenland around 1250AD. This artifact and others at the site suggest that the Vikings were the first Europeans to visit northern Baffin Island. These visits may have been expeditions to trade with the Inuit of the Pond Inlet region, or attempts to find the lands that could support their farming culture. Another climatic change, the Little Ice Age, eventually drove the Norse out of the area.

The name "Ponds Bay" was first given to the land about 5 km east of the present settlement in 1818.

John Ross, a British explorer, named the area after John Ponds, at that time the Astronomer Royal. The first white settlers to the community moved the name over to town's present location but there was no Inuktitut name for this site, the Inuit referred to it as Mittimatalik, meaning "Where Mittima is buried" (referring to a grave that use to be located beside a large rock that is located beside Joshua Katsak's residence) The Inuit got stuck with the Inuktitut name.

In the summer of 1921 Hudson's Bay Company established a post at Pond Inlet, about 13 km west of Igarjuar.

Population: 1,668

Contact

Email: @email
Phone: 867-899-8934
Fax: 867-899-8940
Website: www.pondinlet.ca