Kuujjuarapik, Quebec
Kuujjuarapik ( " less important river " in Inuktitut ) is the southernmost settlement in the Nunavik region, administrative region of Nord- du- Québec.
It is inhabited by about 650 Inuit, which is the location with about 750 inhabitants Cree Indian settlement Whapmagoostui ( "place of white whales " in Cree ) share. Previously, the community had other names: " Poste -de- la- Baleine " in French and " Great Whale River " in English.
Kuujjuarapik is located on the east coast of Hudson Bay at the mouth of the Grande rivière de la Baleine.
Ancestors of both the Inuit as the Cree Indians lived here already about 2800 years ago. In the 18th century, the first white hunters came to the region, and laid the Lac Guillaume- Delisle Camps, Petite rivière de la Baleine and Grande rivière de la Baleine on. The Hudson 's Bay Company set up in 1820 to the present settlement site a " Great Whale River," said a trading post; besides the usual trade in fur products obtained were traded here and in the whale hunt. 1882 an Anglican and 1890 a Roman Catholic mission station was established. The federal government had in 1895 set up a weather station, and in the first decades of the 20th century followed infirmary. However, the actual construction of the settlement Kuujjuarapik began in the late 1930s.
During the Second World War, the U.S. Air Force maintained a military base here with runway - facilities that were transferred to the Canadian government in 1948. In the second half of the 1950s, the base was included in the line of military defense radar stations of the "Mid - Canada Line ", along the Atlantic Ocean to the 55th Latitude stretched from 1955 to Hudson Bay.
A decline in population experienced Kuujjuarapik 1985, when many families feared negative effects of Grande- Baleine hydroelectric project and moved by Umiujaq, one about 160 kilometers north of Kuujjuarapik situated Inuit settlement.
As a special attraction of Kuujjuarapik an old church with a fresco by Eddy apply Witaluktuk that Christ shows while walking on the waters of the Grande rivière de la Baleine, and a very fine collection of Inuit sculptures and paintings Eddy Witaluktuks in Asimautaq school.
Just north of Kuujjuarapik are the abundant wildlife Manitounuk islands with distinctive characteristic of the East Coast of Hudson Bay rock formations, the so-called Hudsonian cuestas, and 12 kilometers to the Grande rivière de la Baleine up can hike through the stunning Amitapanuch cases.