Subdivisions As a social rather than political region, the Canadian North is often subdivided into two distinct regions based on climate, the
near north and the
far north. The different climates of these two regions result in vastly different vegetation, and therefore very different economies, settlement patterns and histories.
Near north ,
Northwest Territories in
Yukon's
Ivvavik National Park The "near north" or
sub-Arctic is mostly synonymous with the
Canadian boreal forest, a large area of
evergreen-dominated forests with a
subarctic climate. This area has traditionally been home to the
Indigenous peoples of the Subarctic, that is the
First Nations, who were
hunters of
moose, freshwater
fishers and
trappers. This region was heavily involved in the
North American fur trade during its peak importance, and is home to many
Métis people who originated in that trade. The area was mostly part of
Rupert's Land under the nominal control of the
Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) from 1670 to 1869, who regarded Rupert's Land as their proprietary colony. In 1670,
King Charles II of England in his grant creating the proprietary colony Rupert's Land defined its frontiers as all the lands adjudging
Hudson Strait,
Hudson Bay or rivers flowing into Hudson Bay, in theory giving control of much of what is now Canada to the HBC. Under the royal charter of 2 May 1670, the HBC received the theoretical control of making up 40% of what is now Canada. Despite its claim that Rupert's Land was a proprietary colony, the HBC controlled only the areas around its forts (
trading posts) on the shores of
James Bay and Hudson Bay, and never sought to impose political control on the First Nations peoples, whose co-operation was needed for the fur trade. For its first century, the HBC never ventured inland, being content to have the First Nations peoples come to its forts to trade fur for European goods. The HBC started to move inland only in the late 18th century to assert its claim to Rupert's Land in response to rival fur traders coming out of
Montreal who were hurting profits by going directly to the First Nations. The HBC's claim to Rupert's Land, which, as the company was the de facto administrator, included the
North-Western Territory, was purchased by the Canadian government in 1869. After buying Rupert's Land, Canada renamed the area it had purchased the
Northwest Territories. Shortly thereafter the government made a
series of treaties with the local First Nations regarding land title. This opened the region to non-Native settlement, as well as to forestry, mining, and oil and gas drilling. In 1896, gold was discovered in the Yukon, leading to the
Klondike Gold Rush in 1896-1899, and the first substantial white settlements were made in the near north. To deal with the increased settlement in the
Klondike, the Yukon Territory was created in 1898. Today several million people live in the near north, around 15% of the Canadian total. Large parts of the near north are not part of Canada's territories, but rather are the northern parts of the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, meaning they have very different political histories as minority regions within larger units. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Canada reduced the size of the Northwest Territory by carving new provinces out of it such as Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, together with the new territory of the Yukon, while transferring other parts of the Northwest Territory to Ontario and Quebec.
Far north landscape in
Nunavut. The "far north" is synonymous with the areas north of the
tree line: the
Barren Grounds and
tundra. This area is home to the various sub-groups of the
Inuit, a people unrelated to other
Indigenous peoples in Canada. These are people who have traditionally relied mostly on hunting
marine mammals and
caribou, mainly
barren-ground caribou, as well as fish and migratory birds. The Inuit lived in groups that pursued a
hunter-gatherer lifestyle, with a basic governmental system in which power was exercised by the local headman, a person acknowledged to be the best hunter, and the
angakkuq, sometimes called shamans. This area was somewhat involved in the
fur trade, but was more influenced by the
whaling industry. Britain maintained a claim to the far north as part of the
British Arctic Territories, and in 1880 transferred its claim to Canada, who incorporated the far north into the Northwest Territories. It was not until 1920, when detachments of the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) started being sent into the far north to enforce Canadian law, that Canadian sovereignty over the region became effective. This area was not part of the early 20th century treaty process, and
aboriginal title to the land has been acknowledged by the Canadian government with the creation of
autonomous territories instead of the
Indian reserves of further south. In
1982 a referendum was held to decide on splitting the Northwest Territories. This was followed by the
1992 Nunavut creation referendum, with the majority of the people in the far north voting to leave the Northwest Territories, leading to creation of the new territory of Nunavut in 1999. Very few non-Indigenous people have settled in these areas, and the residents of the far north represent less than 1% of Canada's total population. The far north is also often broken into western and eastern parts and sometimes a central part. The eastern Arctic includes the self-governing territory of Nunavut (much of which is in the true Arctic, being north of the
Arctic Circle), sometimes excluding
Cambridge Bay and
Kugluktuk;
Nunavik, an autonomous part of the province of Quebec;
Nunatsiavut, an autonomous part of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador; and perhaps a few parts of the
Hudson Bay coast of Ontario and Manitoba. The western Arctic is the northernmost portion of the Northwest Territories (roughly
Inuvik Region) and a small part of Yukon, together called the
Inuvialuit Settlement Region, and sometimes includes Cambridge Bay and Kugluktuk. The central Arctic covers the pre-division
Kitikmeot Region, Northwest Territories.
Territoriality Since 1925, Canada has claimed the portion of the Arctic between
60°W and
141°W longitude, extending all the way north to the
North Pole: All islands in the
Arctic Archipelago and
Herschel, off the Yukon coast, form part of the region and are Canadian territory, and the
territorial waters claimed by Canada surround these islands. Views of territorial claims in this region are complicated by disagreements on legal principles. Canada and the
Soviet Union/
Russia have long claimed that their territory extends according to the
sector principle to the North Pole. The United States does not accept the sector principle and does not make a sector claim based on its
Alaskan Arctic coast. Claims that undersea geographic features are extensions of a country's
continental shelf are also used to support claims; for example the Denmark/
Greenland claim on territory to the North Pole, some of which is disputed by Canada. Foreign ships, both civilian and military, are allowed the right of
innocent passage through the territorial waters of a
littoral state subject to conditions in the
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The right of innocent passage is not allowed, however, in
internal waters, which are enclosed bodies of water or waters landward of a chain of islands. Disagreements about the sector principle or extension of territory to the North Pole and about the definition of internal waters in the Arctic lie behind differences in
territorial claims in the Arctic. This claim is recognized by most countries with some exceptions, including the United States; Denmark, Russia, and Norway have made claims similar to those of Canada in the Arctic and are opposed by the European Union and the United States. This is especially important with the
Northwest Passage, which Canada asserts control of as part of
Canadian Internal Waters because it is within of Canadian islands; however, the United States claims that it is in
international waters. As of 2023, ice and freezing temperatures have always made this a minor issue, but
climate change may make the passage more accessible to shipping. Furthermore, the thawing of the polar ice cap increases the mutual proximity of Canada and Russia as a result of the historically unusable Arctic Ocean becoming increasingly navigable. ==Demographics==