Hall Beach

The settlement Hall Beach ( Inuktitut name: Sanirajak, " flat land along the coast " ), Canadian territory of Nunavut, Qikiqtaaluk region, is located on the east coast of the Melville Peninsula south of the Fury and Hecla Strait in a traditional, Amittuq ( literally: " it's tight " ) area referred to in the Foxe Basin. The living here on the island and therefore Iglulik Inuit refer to themselves as " Amittumiut ". The number of settlement residents amounts to about 670 (of which 95 % Inuit ).

In the region Amittuq relics were found by people of the Dorset culture and the Thule culture, a proof that the area has been inhabited for over 3,000 years.

Unlike most Inuit settlements of the territory of Nunavut is based the foundation of Hall Beach neither on a previously existing trading posts, even on a whaling station, a mission station or a collection of traditional camps. The occasion was rather the mid- 1950s, construction began of the DEW Line ( Distant Early Warning System, Early Warning System ), which made 1957 Hall Beach arise, named after the American explorer Charles Francis Hall, who was traveling in the 1860s in the area. Before him already the European explorer William Edward Parry and George Francis Lyon ( captain of the " Hecla " ) had 1822/1823 stopped in search of a Northwest Passage during the winter on the island Iglulik here.

After 1957 and in the 1960s the Inuit moved from their camps in the vicinity of the DEW Line facilities. Their ties to the traditional way of life but they have abandoned it only in part.