Not an Empty Wasteland: Place Names in Canada’s North
Compared to many places in the world where indigenous people struggle to have their voices heard, Inuit in the Canadian Arctic are in an enviable position. Nunavut occupies 1/5 th of Canada’s land mass, a vast majority of its population (85%) is Inuit, and 70% consider Inuktitut their first language...
Main Author: | |
---|---|
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
York University
2009
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10315/2904 |
id |
ftyorkuniv:oai:yorkspace.library.yorku.ca:10315/2904 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftyorkuniv:oai:yorkspace.library.yorku.ca:10315/2904 2023-05-15T15:05:42+02:00 Not an Empty Wasteland: Place Names in Canada’s North Plenary Lecture Peplinski, Lynn 2009 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/10315/2904 en eng York University Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress of Onomastic Sciences 978-1-55014-521-2 http://hdl.handle.net/10315/2904 The following articles are © 2009 with the individual authors. They are made available free of charge from this page as a service to the community under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative Works license version 3.0. For full details go to http://creativecommons.org.licenses/ny-nd.3.0 CC-BY-NC-ND Article 2009 ftyorkuniv 2022-08-22T13:06:41Z Compared to many places in the world where indigenous people struggle to have their voices heard, Inuit in the Canadian Arctic are in an enviable position. Nunavut occupies 1/5 th of Canada’s land mass, a vast majority of its population (85%) is Inuit, and 70% consider Inuktitut their first language. In harsh, treeless land considered by many to be mostly devoid of human presence, Inuit have a rich history of land use and occupancy that is reflected in thousands of place names that have yet to appear on Canadian maps. The Inuit Heritage Trust (IHT), a Nunavut land claim organization, is working to elevate Inuit toponymy to official status. Inuit involved in land claims outside of Nunavut, as well as other aboriginal groups in Canada’s north are submitting new names and name changes by the hundreds to provincial and territorial authorities often in concert with land claims negotiations. In addition to existing as an expression of cultural and territorial sovereignty, place names constitute a significant source of baseline environmental information that can inform climate change research as well as the sovereignty debate. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Climate change inuit inuktitut Nunavut York University, Toronto: YorkSpace Arctic Nunavut |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
York University, Toronto: YorkSpace |
op_collection_id |
ftyorkuniv |
language |
English |
description |
Compared to many places in the world where indigenous people struggle to have their voices heard, Inuit in the Canadian Arctic are in an enviable position. Nunavut occupies 1/5 th of Canada’s land mass, a vast majority of its population (85%) is Inuit, and 70% consider Inuktitut their first language. In harsh, treeless land considered by many to be mostly devoid of human presence, Inuit have a rich history of land use and occupancy that is reflected in thousands of place names that have yet to appear on Canadian maps. The Inuit Heritage Trust (IHT), a Nunavut land claim organization, is working to elevate Inuit toponymy to official status. Inuit involved in land claims outside of Nunavut, as well as other aboriginal groups in Canada’s north are submitting new names and name changes by the hundreds to provincial and territorial authorities often in concert with land claims negotiations. In addition to existing as an expression of cultural and territorial sovereignty, place names constitute a significant source of baseline environmental information that can inform climate change research as well as the sovereignty debate. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Peplinski, Lynn |
spellingShingle |
Peplinski, Lynn Not an Empty Wasteland: Place Names in Canada’s North |
author_facet |
Peplinski, Lynn |
author_sort |
Peplinski, Lynn |
title |
Not an Empty Wasteland: Place Names in Canada’s North |
title_short |
Not an Empty Wasteland: Place Names in Canada’s North |
title_full |
Not an Empty Wasteland: Place Names in Canada’s North |
title_fullStr |
Not an Empty Wasteland: Place Names in Canada’s North |
title_full_unstemmed |
Not an Empty Wasteland: Place Names in Canada’s North |
title_sort |
not an empty wasteland: place names in canada’s north |
publisher |
York University |
publishDate |
2009 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10315/2904 |
geographic |
Arctic Nunavut |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Nunavut |
genre |
Arctic Climate change inuit inuktitut Nunavut |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change inuit inuktitut Nunavut |
op_relation |
Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress of Onomastic Sciences 978-1-55014-521-2 http://hdl.handle.net/10315/2904 |
op_rights |
The following articles are © 2009 with the individual authors. They are made available free of charge from this page as a service to the community under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative Works license version 3.0. For full details go to http://creativecommons.org.licenses/ny-nd.3.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC-ND |
_version_ |
1766337346433712128 |