10 Interesting Facts About Cambridge Bay

Facts About Cambridge Bay

Facts About Cambridge Bay

  • Cambridge Bay is a hamlet located on Victoria Island in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut, Canada
  • Cambridge Bay is the largest settlement on Victoria Island.
  • Cambridge Bay is named for Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, while the traditional Inuinnaqtun name for the area is Ikaluktutiak, old orthography, or Iqaluktuttiaq, new orthography, meaning “good fishing place”.
  • The traditional language of the area is Inuinnaqtun and is written using the Latin alphabet rather than the syllabics of the Inuktitut writing system.
  • Cambridge Bay is the largest stop for passenger and research vessels traversing the Arctic Ocean’s Northwest Passage, a disputed area which the Government of Canada claims are Canadian Internal Waters, while other nations state they are either territorial waters or international waters.
  • The Estimated Population of Cambridge Bay 1,766.
  • The area was a traditional hunting and fishing location and archaeological sites are often found. The barren-ground caribou, muskox, Arctic char, lake trout and ringed seal were the primary prey, and remain important food sources.
  • The first known people to occupy the area were the Pre-Dorset people, somewhere around 1800 BCE, about 4,000 years ago, and were seal and caribou hunters.
  • The first Europeans to reach Cambridge Bay were overland explorers led by Thomas Simpson in 1839; they were searching for a Northwest Passage and had crossed the sea ice on foot.
  • In 2012, the roads of Cambridge Bay were imaged for Google Street View by a tricycle fitted with a camera system.
Facts About Cambridge Bay
Facts About Cambridge Bay