Over 5340 km2 of Inuit Owned Lands
Nunavik Region:
The Nunavik Territory hosts more than 14,000 Inuit, living in coastal communities:
Kangiqsualujjuaq (George River),
Kuujjuaq (Fort Chimo),
Tasiujaq (Leaf Bay),
Aupaluk,
Kangirsuk (Payne Bay),
Quaqtaq,
Kangiqsujuaq,
Salluit,
Ivujivik,
Akulivik,
Puvirnituq,
Inukjuak (Port Harrison),
Umiujaq,
Kuujjuaraapik (Great Whale River),
and Chisasibi (an Inuit community amongst Cree village located outside Nunavik).
The Nunavik Marine Region includes the offshore region abutting northern Quebec and northern Labrador, including James Bay, Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay. The Nunavik Marine Region (NMR) includes all the marine areas, islands, lands and waters within the boundary identified in Schedule 3-2 of the Nunavik Inuit Land Claims Agreement (NILCA).
Under Article 6, the definition of “land” includes water, resources and wildlife. The NMR boundary includes areas of equal use and occupancy with the Inuit of Nunavut, overlapping interest area with the Cree of Eeyou Itschee and the Nunavik Inuit/Labrador Inuit Overlap Areas.
NILCA Region:
The Nunavik Inuit Land Claims Agreement (NILCA) came into effect on July 10, 2007. It applies to the offshoreregion around Québec, Northern Labrador, and offshore Northern Labrador.
The rights of the Nunavik Inuit to the offshore were recognized as unfinished business in the 1975 James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement. However, it took many years of meticulous research and active political lobbying to have the formal statement of claim finally accepted in January 1992, for negotiations with the federal government. During that same period, a separate statement of claim to Labrador was prepared. It was accepted for negotiations in June 1993.
Nunavik – “great land”
Nunavik comprises the northern third of the province of Quebec, Canada. The region is bound by the south at the 55th parallel to the east by the Quebec / Labrador border, to the north by the Ungava Bay and Hudson Straight and to the west by eastern Hudson Bay.
Nunavik is one of the 4 regions that make up Inuit Nunangat, the vast region of Canada that has 51 communities spread across the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (Northwest Territories), Nunavut and Nunatsiavut (Northern Labrador). The term “Inuit Nunangat” is a Canadian Inuit term that includes land, water and ice.