POND INLET, Nunavut, Canada

Pond Inlet, Nunavut, Canada September 5, 2018 - Day 10 of Quark's Northwest Passage Voyage Pond Inlet, population 1,617, a predominantly Inuit community in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada, is located on the northern tip of Baffin Island near the eastern entrance to the Northwest Passage. The name “Ponds Bay” was first given to the land about 3 miles east of the present settlement in 1818. John Ross, a British explorer named the area after John Pond, at that time the Astronomer Royal. The first white settlers to the community moved the name over to the town’s present location. The Inuktitut name for this site has long been "Mittimatalik," the “landing place,” referring to a large rock, where gulls used to alight and from which they used to fish. Pond Inlet has a polar arctic climate with long cold winters and short cool summers. European and American whalers hunting bowhead frequented these waters throughout the 19th century. The first whaling station was built here in 1903, but the industry soon collapsed. In 1912, three separate expeditions landed in Pond Inlet in search of gold. Nothing was found, but a small trading post was established. In 1929, Anglican and Catholic missions were erected. A federal government school was built here in the 1960s that included residences for Inuit children whose families still lived out on the land. Most local Inuit people abandoned their nomadic subsistence-hunting lifestyles and moved into public housing in Pond Inlet, although some families would not.