Pond Inlet
Where Modern Meets Traditional
Last update: 07. November 2025
The Inuktut name for our community is Mittimatalik, which has two competing origin stories. Some of us think it means “the landing place”, referring to a large rock on which ‘seagulls used to alight and from which they used to fish.’ Others believe it means “place where Mittima is buried.” No one knows who Mittima was or where he came from.
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Thule have lived on the northern tip of Baffin Island through periods known to archaeologists as pre-Dorset, Dorset, Thule, and modern Inuit. Our ancestors lived in sealskin tents (tupiit) in the summer and igloos (igluvigait) or sod huts roofed with skins
and moss (qarngmait) in the winter. You can see a recreation of an Igluvigait in our community today. To see an igloo, you’ll have to come back in the winter.
Two centuries of continued contact with Europeans has brought us to the present-day, where we now live in modern houses and enjoy modern amenities. We still retain aspects of our traditional lifestyle and our heritage has a significant and meaningful impact on our
day-to-day lives. The wilderness is our grocery store and today we still hunt, eat and use parts from seal, narwhal, geese, walrus, bowhead whales, foxes, caribou, and polar bears.
72°42’N 077°57’W
Key Items of Interest
- In the 1820s British whaling vessels began to hunt bowhead whales in the area. Just over a century later, in 1921, the Hudson’s Bay Company established a post within the present day boundaries of the community.
- In 1960 our community was home to only around fifty people. Today there are around 1700 of us, approximately 95% of whom are Inuit.
- Pond Inlet receives 24 hours of sunshine from May 5th to August 7th.
- From mid-November to mid-January, there is no sun, just starlight, moonlight, and the Northern Lights reflecting off the ice and snow, with an average temperature of -40°C.
- We refer to ourselves as Tununirmiut, which is thought to mean “people of the shaded place” or Mittimatalingmiut, meaning “people of Mittimatalik.”
Guidelines
Welcome to Mittimatalik. We encourage you to explore our community, but please respect our privacy, our belongings, and our homes and yards. Treat us the way you wish to be treated in your community and in your home.
- We invite you to take pictures of our beautiful scenery and our community, but please ask permission before taking pictures of us, our children or our homes.
- We encourage you to hear our stories, so come with an open mind to learn about where and how we live. We are proud of our hunting traditions and of our use of local food sources. Wildlife products and subsistence harvesting are central to our culture. With this in mind, you may see harvesting activities taking place. Keep in mind that these animals have lived free and wild and we only take what we need.
- Please respect that illegal substances and alcohol should not be brought into our community nor exchanged for local products or other items.
- Inuit sled dogs are an important resource for our hunters and outfitters, so while we encourage you to observe our dog teams please do so at a respectful distance. Please do not interfere with the dogs while they are being fed or approach the owners when they are working with their teams, unless you are especially invited to do so.
- We invite you to visit our grocery stores but remember that it takes a lot of effort to fill our shelves. Fresh items are only resupplied once a week, weather and flights permitting. Please purchase only what you truly need.
- Be generous and give proper value for locally made arts and crafts. Make sure you know whether or not you can bring wildlife products such as sealskin, bone or ivory back to your own country. If you can – please see what we create. Pond Inlet has several nationally famous and sought after artists who produce work for galleries in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.
- The standard exchange rate for USD to CAD at our
community store is 1 to 1. Please try to pay in CAD if you can,
if not, we’ll accept USD at a 1 to 1 rate. - We can provide a maximum of 10 minutes of wifI at the library, which is located in our Visitor Centre. Please respect this time limit as our wifi resources are limited.
- We want you to have a safe visit to Pond Inlet. With that in mind, avoid walking in the middle of the road just as you would at home. We are busy going about our days and yes, we do drive. Local vehicles are not taxis unless otherwise arranged for your visit.
- While many people under 40 understand English well, our language is strong and healthy here and we are immensely proud of this. We encourage you to try a few words in Inuktitut. We apologize, but we will not be able to understand
German, French or Russian. Luckily smiles are universal. - We say ‘yes’ with our eyebrows and ‘no’ with our nose. If we don’t respond verbally, that doesn’t mean we are ignoring you.
- If you venture away from the community, enjoy our scenery and local fauna, but remember that our stones and cultural treasures are not souvenirs, they are part of our ancient history. Please leave them where they belong.
- We have a young, growing population and our children are curious and fun-loving. Please don’t be alarmed if you see our youth playing outside unsupervised. We are a tight knit community and this is normal – especially in the long days of the Arctic summer!
- Hear our stories and listen to them with an open mind. If you want, share your stories too! Let’s embrace our differences and our similarities.
A detailed history can be found at: www.qtcommission.ca/en/communities/pond-inlet-mittimatalik. More information about our community is found at our website www.PondInlet.ca, and www.destinationnunavut.ca/places/pond-inlet.