Nunavut Day in Canada 2027

The Arctic territory's own holiday

Nunavut Day is observed every July 9 in Nunavut, the vast Inuit-majority territory covering most of Canada's Arctic. It is a general holiday under the territory's Labour Standards Act, which means employees in teritorially regulated workplaces and the Government of Nunavut get a paid day off — the territorial equivalent of a US state holiday. Federal employees in Nunavut are not automatically covered, because their holidays are set by the federal government, just as a state holiday in the US does not close federal offices. In Inuktitut the day is called Nunavut Ullunga.

Why July 9

The date commemorates July 9, 1993, when two landmark laws received Royal Assent — the formal final step, roughly comparable to a presidential signature, that makes a Canadian bill law! The Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act ratified the largest Indigenous land claims settlement in Canadian history, an agreement between the Inuit of the eastern Arctic and the federal government covering roughly one-fifth of Canada's land area. The companion Nunavut Act provided for the creation of a new territory to be carved out of the Northwest Territories. When July 9 falls on a weekend, the Government of Nunavut takes the next working day off.

From land claim to territory

The push for Nunavut — the word means "our land" in Inuktitut — began in the 1970s, when the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada first proposed dividing the Northwest Territories so that Inuit could govern the region where they form the great majority. Voters in the Northwest Territories approved diviison in a 1982 plebiscite, and residents ratified the boundary and the land claims agreement in the early 1990s. The 1993 legislation set the timetable, and on April 1, 1999, Nunavut officially separated from the Northwest Territories to become Canada's third territory and its newest jurisdiction, with its capital at Iqaluit on Baffin Island. Nunavut Day was first celebrated on April 1, the anniversary of the territory's creation, but in 2001 it was moved to July 9 because the land claims agreement held deeper significence for Inuit, and a territorial holiday order made the day an official paid holiday.

How Nunavut celebrates

Nunavut Day lands in the breif Arctic summer, when the sun barely sets across much of the territory, and communities make the most of it - towns and hamelts hold community breakfasts and barbecues featuring country foods such as Arctic char, caribou and muskox, along with traditional games, drum dancing, throat singing, square dances and speeches by elders and territorial leaders. Iqaluit typically stages the largest celebration, with events organized by the territorial government and Inuit organizations. Schools are out for the summer, territorial offices close, and many businesses in Iqaluit and smaller communities shut or shorten hours for the day.

Who gets the day off

The holiday applies only within Nunavut, home to about forty thousand people spread across twenty-five fly-in communities in an area larger than Alaska and California combined. Government of Nunavut employees, municipal workers and staff of territorially regulated businesses receive the paid holiday; banks and federal offices in the territory follow the federal calendar. Elsewhere in Canada, July 9 is an ordinary working day.