Labrador and Nunatsiavut

Eight days sailing up and down the Labrador coast visiting Inuit communities and natural areas and listening to talks on history did not fill in my enormous knowledge gap about Labrador, and I had never heard of Nunatsiavut before, but this is some of what I have now learned about the geography and history. 

In the 18th century there wasn’t much European settlement; fishermen came from Newfoundland for the summer and caught seal and salmon, and cod in the south, and then returned home. 

The Moravian missionaries

A group of merchants attached to the Moravian congregation in London decided to outfit a trading and missionary voyage to the Labrador coast in 1752. A mission house was built near Makkovik, and named Hoffnungsthal (Hopedale). This expedition ended when its leader and six companions were killed by Inuit. 

Jens Haven, a missionary in Greenland, took over the idea of a Labrador mission. In 1763 he went to London and met the Governor of Newfoundland, Sir Hugh Palliser, who understood that the Moravians might be useful in helping to end the warfare between Europeans and Inuit, which made southern Labrador and the Strait of Belle Isle a dangerous place. Palliser sponsored Haven's expeditions to the area. In 1771 a missionary party consisting of three married couples and eight single men founded the settlement at Nain, which became the Moravian headquarters in Labrador.

Nain Moravian church, 1771. The brass band played
in the tower and could be heard around the settlement.

Inside Nain church (cold in winter).

Soon two more stations were established - Okak in 1776, and a new Hopedale at Arvertok in 1782. The buildings at Hopedale are a National Historic Site under the care of Parks Canada.

Hopedale church

Inside Hopedale church.

Each station consisted of a communal dwelling house, a church, a trading store - the profits covering at least some of the costs of the mission - and various outbuildings. The missionaries kept gardens, and there was a graveyard. Those Inuit who chose to live near the mission built sod houses nearby. Most converts came to the stations between Christmas and Easter only. Music played by brass bands was central to the Moravian services. 

18th century instruments in the museum at Hopedale

By 1818 some 600 Inuit were attached to the three stations. Hebron was established in 1830 and is also now a National Historic site. Parks Canada have renovated the exterior of the church & mission buildings.

Typical Moravian cupola on the church at Hebron.

The mission now served the growing settler population on the northern coast as well as the Inuit, and its trade faced increasing competition from the Hudson's Bay Company. During the 19th century there were between 30 and 40 missionaries on the coast at any one time. Inuktitut was the language used in church and school. 

During the Second World War, the mission headquarters moved from Nain to Happy Valley. The provincial government took over the Moravian schools, and the International Grenfell Association assumed full responsibility for medical services along the coast. In a highly controversial move, Hebron was closed in 1959 and its population moved to the remaining settlements (far from their traditional trap lines). 

During World War II the Canadian government built an air force base at Goose Bay, at the head of Lake Melville, a refuelling point for plane convoys to Europe, a site selected because of its topography, access to the sea, defensible location, and minimal fog. 

An RAF Vulcan XL361 next to Goose Bay airport

Today, CFB Goose Bay is the largest employer for the community of Happy Valley-Goose Bay. 

During the Cold War both the RCAF and USAF built and operated a number of radar stations along coastal Labrador. Today the remaining stations have been automated but Innu and Inuit communities continue to cluster near the port and airfield facilities built for the radar stations.

Hopedale was a US military site

Mining

The Iron Ore company of Canada (owned 58.7% by Rio Tinto, 26.2% by Mitsubishi and 15.1% by the Labrador Iron Ore Royalty Income Fund) has a large iron ore mine in Labrador City. After concentrating the ore, pellets and concentrate are transported 418 km south by the Québec North Shore & Labrador railway to the company’s shipping terminal and deepwater port in Sept-Îles, QC. The port operates year-round, loading over 200 vessels a year. Exports to major steel makers world wide are expected to reach 22 million tonnes this year.

Vale Voisey's Bay owns a nickel mine, south of Nain. Workers at Voisey's Bay are flown in from other communities in the province, and live in a camp while onsite. There are no current plans to build a permanent settlement at Voisey. 

Inuit land claims, Nunatsiavut

In 1977 the Labrador Inuit Association filed a land and sea claim with Canada. Various agreements were signed in 2002 with Labrador and Canada concerning the impacts of the Voisey’s Bay nickel mine, which accelerated the land claim agreement. On December 1, 2005, the Labrador Inuit Claims Agreement came into effect and the first assembly of the Nunatsiavut Government was held in Nain, the administrative centre. An important part of the claim is for use of sea-ice for hunting and fishing. 

We visited Hopedale, Hebron, the Torngat Mountains National Park, Nain and Rigolet - all now in Nunatsiavut, "our beautiful Land", which has its own regional government within Newfoundland & Labrador. Nain is the administrative centre and the Assembly building is in Hopedale.

The Nunatsiavut Assembly building in Hopedale

Churchill Falls.

The hydroelectric dam at Churchill Falls was the largest underground power station in the world when it was built. It was started in 1967 and commissioned in 1971 (8 years before the Robert-Bourassa generating station in Québec’s James Bay). It is owned jointly by Nalcor (65.8%) and Hydro-Québec (34.2%) and operated by Newfoundland & Labrador Hydro. Sean Cadigan, professor of history at Memorial University of Newfoundland, told us that the contract to sell power (which favours Québec until 2041 and is considered very unfair) was negotiated between two Crown corporations, Hydro-Québec and the power company in Newfoundland and Labrador, not by the provincial governments. At the time some of the board members who signed the contract sat on the boards of both Crown corporations!

The hydroelectric plant development was undertaken without any agreement with the aboriginal Innu people of Labrador http://www.innu.ca/. The construction involved the flooding of over 5,000 km2 of traditional hunting and trapping lands. A recent agreement signed between the government of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Innu offered the Labrador Innu hunting rights within 34,000 square kilometres of land, plus $2 million annually in compensation for flooding, clearing the way for the Lower Churchill project at Muskrat Falls.

This map shows Nunatsiavut in Labrador, Nunavik in northern Québec,
Inuvialuit in North West Territories, and Nunavut.

The total population of Labrador in 2006 was 26,364, or a population density of 0.09 per km2.