Inuvik Inuuvik
Town
Buildings of central Inuvik from south of town
Inuvik Show map of Northwest Territories Inuvik Show map of Canada
Coordinates: 68°21′39″N 133°43′47″W / 68.36083°N 133.72972°W / 68.36083; -133.72972[1]
Country	Canada
Territory	Northwest Territories
Region	Inuvik Region
Constituency	Inuvik Boot Lake Inuvik Twin Lakes
Census division	Region 1
Settled	1954
Village	1 April 1967
Town	1 January 1970[2]
Government [3]
• Mayor	Clarence Wood
• SAO	Grant Hood
• MLA	Lesa Semmler (Twin Lakes)
• MLA	Denny Rodgers (Boot Lake)
• MP	Michael McLeod
Area [4]
• Land	62.68 km2 (24.20 sq mi)
• Population centre[5]	1.60 km2 (0.62 sq mi)
Elevation	15 m (49 ft)
Highest elevation	68 m (223 ft)
Lowest elevation	10 m (30 ft)
Population  (2021)[4]
• Total	3,137
• Density	50.0/km2 (129/sq mi)
• Population centre [5]	3,001
• Population centre density	1,871.4/km2 (4,847/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC−07:00 (MST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−06:00 (MDT)
Canadian Postal code	X0E 0T0
Area code	867
Telephone exchange	620, 678, 768, 777 (777 was previously (403) 979), 888
– Living cost (2018)	147.5A
– Food price index (2019)	158.6B
Highways	Dempster Highway Inuvik–Tuktoyaktuk Highway
Waterways	Mackenzie River
Climate	Dfc
Website	www.inuvik.ca
Sources: Department of Municipal and Community Affairs,[3] Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre,[6] Canada Flight Supplement[7] ^A 2018 figure based on Edmonton = 100[8] ^B 2019 figure based on Yellowknife = 100[8]

Inuvik /ɪˈnuːvɪk/ (place of man) is the only town^[9] in the Inuvik Region, and the third largest community in Canada's Northwest Territories. Located in what is sometimes called the Beaufort Delta Region,^[10] it serves as its administrative and service centre and is home to federal, territorial, and Indigenous government offices, along with the regional hospital and airport.

Inuvik is located on the northern edge of the boreal forest, just before it begins to transition to tundra, and along the east side of the enormous Mackenzie River delta. The town lies on the border between the Gwich'in Settlement Region^[11][12] and the Inuvialuit Settlement Region.^[13][14][15]

History

Inuvik was conceived in 1953 as a replacement administrative centre for the hamlet of Aklavik on the west of the Mackenzie Delta, as the latter was prone to flooding and had no room for expansion. Initially called "New Aklavik", it was renamed Inuvik in 1958. The school was built in 1959 and the hospital, government offices and staff residences in 1960, when people, including Inuvialuit, Gwichʼin (Dene) and Métis, began to live in the community.

Naval Radio Station (NRS) Inuvik, later CFS Inuvik, callsign CFV, was commissioned on 10 September 1963 after operations had been successfully transferred from NRS Aklavik. Station CFV was part of the SUPRAD (Supplementary Radio) network of intercept and direction finding stations.

CFS Inuvik closed on 1 April 1986 and the site was transferred to the Department of Transport for use as a telecommunications station. Nothing remains of CFS Inuvik today. The Navy Operations base at the end of Navy Road was completely dismantled and removed.

Inuvik achieved village status in 1967 and became a full town in 1979 with an elected mayor and council. In 1979, with the completion of the Dempster Highway, Inuvik became connected to Canada's highway system, and simultaneously the most northerly town to which one could drive in Canada. While a winter only ice road through the Mackenzie River delta still connects Inuvik to Aklavik, southwest of Inuvik, the Tuktoyaktuk Winter Road, which ran northeast to Tuktoyaktuk, is no longer being built due to the opening in November 2017, of the Inuvik–Tuktoyaktuk Highway (ITH), which is open all year round. The Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk highway, which connects to Canada's highway system at Inuvik via the Dempster Highway, is the first road in history to reach the Arctic Ocean in North America.^[16]

Between 1971 and 1990, the town's economy was supported by the local Canadian Armed Forces Station, CFS Inuvik, (originally a Naval Radio Station, later a communications research/signals intercept facility^[17]) and by petrochemical companies exploring the Mackenzie Valley and the Beaufort Sea for petroleum. This all collapsed in 1990 for a variety of reasons, including disappearing government military subsidies, local resistance to petroleum exploration, and low international oil prices. Since then the economy has been based on some minor tourism and subsidy provided by the Crown–Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), Health Canada (for the regional hospital) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Demographics

In the 2021 Canadian census conducted by Statistics Canada, Inuvik had a population of 3,137 living in 1,223 of its 1,464 total private dwellings, a change of -3.3 per cent from its 2016 population of 3,243. With a land area of 62.68 km² (24.20 sq mi), it had a population density of 50.0/km² in 2021.^[4]

Ethnicity

As of the 2021 Canadian census there were 1,990 people who identified as Indigenous. Of these 63.6 per cent were Inuvialuit (Inuit, predominantly Uummarmiut), 26.1 per cent First Nations, 5.8 per cent Métis and 4.8 per cent reported other Indigenous heritage. The non-Indigenous population of Inuvik was 36.6 per cent. Local Gwichʼin are enrolled in the Inuvik Native Band.

Language

The main language spoken in Inuvik is English, though schools teach and a handful of local people still speak Inuinnaqtun (Inuvialuktun), and Gwichʼin.^[34] Local CBC Radio, CHAK (AM), broadcasts an hour of programming a day in each of these languages.

Religion

There are also about 100 Muslims, most of whom came there for economic opportunities. A small mosque (dubbed "Little mosque on the tundra" in reference to the CBC show Little Mosque on the Prairie) was established in 2010.^[35]

Geography

Inuvik is located on the East Channel of the Mackenzie Delta, approximately 100 km (62 mi) from the Arctic Ocean and approximately 200 km (120 mi) north of the Arctic Circle. The tree line lies north of Inuvik, and the town is surrounded by boreal forest.^[36]

Due to its northern location, Inuvik experiences an average of 56 days of midnight sun every summer and 30 days of polar night every winter.

Transportation

Road

Until November 2017, Inuvik was the most northern community in Canada to be accessible by road (now second to Tuktoyaktuk). The 736 km (457 mi) Dempster Highway links Inuvik to the rest of Canada, providing relatively easy access to a wide variety of goods, and greatly reducing their cost. In contrast, many Arctic communities depend on cargo flights for regular goods and summer sealifts for larger freight, making goods expensive and often slow to arrive.^[37] In 2017, the Inuvik–Tuktoyaktuk Highway was extended north from Inuvik another 138 km (86 mi) to Tuktoyaktuk on the Arctic coast. Inuvik is also connected to Aklavik by an ice road across the Mackenzie Delta from late December until late April each year.^[38]

The Dempster Highway relies on ferries to cross the Peel River near Fort McPherson and the Mackenzie River at Tsiigehtchic during the summer. In winter, ice bridges are constructed to cross the rivers. During the spring the crossings close throughout May as the ice on the rivers breaks up. Similarly, they are impassible for most of November while the rivers freeze.^[38][39] During these times air travel is the only way for people and goods to reach Inuvik.

Air

The Inuvik (Mike Zubko) Airport is serviced by several regional carriers. Canadian North has regular direct flights to Yellowknife and Norman Wells. It further connects to Edmonton, and a number of smaller communities in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.^[40] Air North connects to points in the Yukon and travels as far south as Vancouver.^[41] Aklak Air flies north to the small communities of Sachs Harbour, Paulatuk, and Ulukhaktok.^[42] Freight services, helicopters, and floatplane charters are also available from Inuvik. Floatplane service operates out of the nearby Inuvik/Shell Lake Water Aerodrome.

Water

When the Mackenzie River is ice-free, Marine Transportation Services provides a commercial barge service from Hay River, on Great Slave Lake to the regional terminal in Inuvik. The annual sealift moves supplies east into the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut and west to Utqiagvik, Alaska.^[43] Many locals own small boats with outboard motors which are used to access family hunting and fishing camps or to visit Aklavik. Boat traffic comes to a halt in the winter when the Mackenzie River freezes.

Climate

Inuvik has a subarctic climate (Köppen Dfc). Summers are typically wetter and cool, with temperatures varying wildly throughout the months due to its peculiar location near the cold Arctic Ocean. The average hottest month of the year, July, has a mean high of 19.5 °C (67.1 °F) and mean low of 8.6 °C (47.5 °F). Unlike many other North American continental climates, Inuvik warms up very quickly during May and June due to the rapidly increasing day length, and that remaining snow cools down until May. June is a warmer month than August. Seasonal transitions are extremely short, with mean daily temperatures rising or falling as fast as 0.5 °C (0.90 °F) per day. Winters are long and cold; the coldest month of the year, January, having a mean high of −22.8 °C (−9.0 °F) and a mean low of −31.0 °C (−23.8 °F). Freezing temperatures can occur any month of the year. Inuvik has a great variation of temperatures during the year, usually peaking below −40 °C (−40 °F) in the winter and above 30 °C (86 °F) in the summer.^[44] The highest temperature ever recorded in Inuvik was 33.0 °C (91.4 °F) on 4 July 2023.^[45] The coldest temperature ever recorded was −56.7 °C (−70.1 °F) on 4 February 1968.^[44]

Snow that falls from October onward usually stays until the spring thaw in mid-May. By March, the median snow depth has reached its greatest, about 56.2 cm (22.1 in).^[44]