
Southampton Island within Nunavut

Closeup of Southampton Island

Satellite photo montage of Southampton Island
'Southampton Island' is a large island at the entrance to
Hudson Bay,
Canada. It is part of the
Kivalliq Region of the
Nunavut Territory. The area of the island is stated as
41,214 km² by
Statistics Canada [1]. It is the
34th largest island in the world and
Canada's 9th largest island. The only settlement on Southampton Island is
Coral Harbour (pop. 712,
Canada 2001 Census), called in Inuit ''Salliq''.
East Bay Bird Sanctuary and
Harry Gibbons Bird Sanctuary are located on the island and are important breeding sites for the
Lesser Snow Goose (''Anser caerulescens caerulescens'').
It is one of the few Canadian areas and the only area in Nunavut that does not use
daylight saving time.
Historically speaking, Southampton Island is famous for its now-extinct inhabitants, the ''Sadlermiut'' (modern
Inuktitut ''Sallirmiut'' "Inhabitants of ''
Salliq''"), who were the last vestige of the '
Tuniit'. The ''Tuniit'', a pre-
Inuit culture, officially went ethnically and culturally extinct in 1902 when an Western illness wiped out the ''Sallirmiut'' in a matter of weeks.