1.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
2.
Labrador Sea
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The Labrador Sea is an arm of the North Atlantic Ocean between the Labrador Peninsula and Greenland. The sea is flanked by continental shelves to the southwest, northwest and it connects to the north with Baffin Bay through the Davis Strait. It has been described as a sea of the Atlantic. The sea formed upon separation of the North American Plate and Greenland Plate that started about 60 million years ago, the Labrador Sea formed upon separation of the North American Plate and Greenland Plate that started about 60 million years ago and stopped about 40 million years ago. A sedimentary basin, which is now buried under the continental shelves, onset of magmatic sea-floor spreading was accompanied by volcanic eruptions of picrites and basalts in the Paleocene at the Davis Strait and Baffin Bay. Between about 500 BC and 1300 AD, the southern coast of the sea contained Dorset, Beothuk and Inuit settlements, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Labrador Sea as follows, On the North, the South limit of Davis Strait. On the East, a line from Cape St. Francis 47°45′N 52°27′W to Cape Farewell, thence a line joining this ledge with the East extreme of Cape St. Charles in Labrador. The Labrador Sea is about 3,400 m deep and 1,000 km wide where it joins the Atlantic Ocean and it becomes shallower, to less than 700 m towards Baffin Bay and passes into the 300 kilometres wide Davis Strait. A 100–200 m deep turbidity current channel system, which is about 2–5 km wide and 3,800 kilometres long, runs on the bottom of the sea and it is called the Northwest Atlantic Mid-Ocean Channel and is one of the worlds longest drainage systems of Pleistocene age. It appears as a river bed with numerous tributaries and is maintained by high-density turbidity currents flowing within the levees. The water temperature varies between −1 °C in winter and 5–6 °C in summer, the salinity is relatively low, at 31–34.9 parts per thousand. Two-thirds of the sea is covered in ice in winter, tides are semi-diurnal, reaching 4 m. There is a water circulation in the sea. It is initiated by the East Greenland Current and continued by the West Greenland Current, then, the Baffin Island Current and Labrador Current transport cold and less saline water southward along the Canadian coast. These currents carry numerous icebergs and therefore hinder navigation and exploration of the gas fields beneath the sea bed. The speed of the Labrador current is typically 0. 3–0.5 m/s, the Labrador Current maintains the water temperature at 0 °C and salinity between 30 and 34 parts per thousand. The NADW consists of three parts of different origin and salinity, and the top one, the Labrador Sea Water, is formed in the Labrador Sea. This part occurs at a depth and has a relatively low salinity, low temperature and high oxygen content compared to the layers above
3.
Greenland
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Greenland is an autonomous constituent country within the Danish Realm between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for more than a millennium. The majority of its residents are Inuit, whose ancestors began migrating from the Canadian mainland in the 13th century, Greenland is the worlds largest island. Three-quarters of Greenland is covered by the permanent ice sheet outside Antarctica. With a population of about 56,480, it is the least densely populated country in the world, the Arctic Umiaq Line ferry acts as a lifeline for western Greenland, connecting the various cities and settlements. Greenland has been inhabited off and on for at least the last 4,500 years by Arctic peoples whose forebears migrated there from what is now Canada, Norsemen settled the uninhabited southern part of Greenland beginning in the 10th century, and Inuit peoples arrived in the 13th century. The Norse colonies disappeared in the late 15th century, soon after their demise, beginning in 1499, the Portuguese briefly explored and claimed the island, naming it Terra do Lavrador. In the early 18th century, Scandinavian explorers reached Greenland again, to strengthen trading and power, Denmark-Norway affirmed sovereignty over the island. Greenland was settled by Vikings more than a thousand years ago, Vikings set sail from Greenland and Iceland, discovering North America nearly 500 years before Columbus reached Caribbean islands. Though under continuous influence of Norway and Norwegians, Greenland was not formally under the Norwegian crown until 1262, the Kingdom of Norway was extensive and a military power until the mid-14th century. Thus, the two kingdoms resources were directed at creating Copenhagen, Norway became the weaker part and lost sovereignty over Greenland in 1814 when the union was dissolved. Greenland became a Danish colony in 1814, and was made a part of the Danish Realm in 1953 under the Constitution of Denmark, in 1973, Greenland joined the European Economic Community with Denmark. However, in a referendum in 1982, a majority of the population voted for Greenland to withdraw from the EEC which was effected in 1985, Greenland contains the worlds largest and most northernly national park, Northeast Greenland National Park. Greenland is divided into four municipalities - Sermersooq, Kujalleq, Qaasuitsup and it also retains control of monetary policy, providing an initial annual subsidy of DKK3.4 billion, which is planned to diminish gradually over time. Greenland expects to grow its economy based on increased income from the extraction of natural resources, the capital, Nuuk, held the 2016 Arctic Winter Games. At 70%, Greenland has one of the highest shares of renewable energy in the world, the early Viking settlers named the island as Greenland. In the Icelandic sagas, the Norwegian-born Icelander Erik the Red was said to be exiled from Iceland for manslaughter, along with his extended family and his thralls, he set out in ships to explore an icy land known to lie to the northwest. After finding an area and settling there, he named it Grœnland
4.
Nunavut
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Nunavut is the newest, largest, and northernmost territory of Canada. The creation of Nunavut resulted in the first major change to Canadas political map since the incorporation of the province of Newfoundland, Nunavut comprises a major portion of Northern Canada, and most of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Its vast territory makes it the fifth-largest country subdivision in the world, the capital Iqaluit, on Baffin Island in the east, was chosen by the 1995 capital plebiscite. Other major communities include the regional centres of Rankin Inlet and Cambridge Bay and it is Canadas only geo-political region that is not connected to the rest of North America by highway. Nunavut is the largest in area and the second least populous of Canadas provinces and territories. One of the worlds most remote, sparsely settled regions, it has a population of 35,944, mostly Inuit, spread over an area of just over 1,750,000 km2, Nunavut is also home to the worlds northernmost permanently inhabited place, Alert. A weather station farther down Ellesmere Island, Eureka, has the lowest average temperature of any Canadian weather station. Nunavut means our land in Inuktitut, Nunavut covers 1,877,787 km2 of land and 160,935 km2 of water in Northern Canada. This makes it the fifth largest subnational entity in the world, if Nunavut were a country, it would rank 15th in area. It also shares borders with Greenland and the provinces of Quebec, Ontario. Nunavuts highest point is Barbeau Peak on Ellesmere Island, the population density is 0.019 persons/km2, one of the lowest in the world. By comparison, Greenland has approximately the area and nearly twice the population. Nunavut experiences a climate in most regions, owing to its high latitude. In more southerly continental areas very cold climates can be found. The region now known as Nunavut has supported an indigenous population for approximately 4,000 years. Most historians identify the coast of Baffin Island with the Helluland described in Norse sagas, the materials were collected in five seasons of excavation at Cape Tanfield. Scholars determined that these provide evidence of European traders and possibly settlers on Baffin Island and they seem to indicate prolonged contact, possibly up to 1450. So you have to consider the possibility that as remote as it may seem, the ore turned out to be worthless, but Frobisher made the first recorded European contact with the Inuit
5.
Canada
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Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
6.
Baffin Island
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Baffin Island, in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada and the fifth largest island in the world. Its area is 507,451 km2 and its population is about 11,000 and it is located 65.4215 N and 70.9654 W. Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, is located on the southeastern coast. Until 1987, the town shared the name Frobisher Bay with the bay on which it is located, to the south lies Hudson Strait, separating Baffin Island from mainland Quebec. South of the end of the island is the Fury. To the east are Davis Strait and Baffin Bay, with Greenland beyond, the Foxe Basin, the Gulf of Boothia and Lancaster Sound separate Baffin Island from the rest of the archipelago to the west and north. The Baffin Mountains run along the shore of the island and are a part of the Arctic Cordillera. Mount Odin is the highest peak, with an elevation of at least 2,143 m, another peak of note is Mount Asgard, located in Auyuittuq National Park, with an elevation of 2,011 m. Mount Thor, with an elevation of 1,675 m, is said to have the greatest purely vertical drop of any mountain on Earth, the two largest lakes on the island lie in the south-central part of the island, Nettilling Lake and Amadjuak Lake further south. Conversely, in the 1970s parts of Baffin Island failed to have the usual ice-free period in the summer, the island has been continuously inhabited by Inuit peoples for centuries. In September 2008, Nunatsiaq News reported that a team led by Dr, so you have to consider the possibility that as remote as it may seem, these finds may represent evidence of contact with Europeans prior to the Vikings arrival in Greenland. Dr Sutherlands research eventually led to a 2012 announcement that whetstones had been found remnants of alloys indicative of Viking presence. The archaeological site at Tanfield Valley is thought to have been a trading post, Baffin Island is part of the Qikiqtaaluk Region. Additionally, the communities of Qikiqtarjuaq and Cape Dorset are located on offshore islands, there are discussions to start the Baffinland Iron Mine, an iron ore mine with a 21-year life, at Mary River, and to build a railway and a port to transport the ore. This may create a mining community there. Baffin Island has both year-round and summer visitor wildlife, on land, examples of year-round wildlife are barren-ground caribou, polar bear, Arctic fox, Arctic hare, lemming and Arctic wolf. In 2012, a survey of caribou herds found that the population was only about 5000. Polar bears mate approximately every year with one to three cubs being born around March. Female polar bears may travel 10–20 km inland to find a large snow bank where they dig a den in which to spend the winter and later for giving birth, the polar bear population here is one of 19 genetically distinct demes of the circumpolar region
7.
Baffin Bay
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Baffin Bay, located between Baffin Island and the southwest coast of Greenland, is a marginal sea of the North Atlantic Ocean. It is connected to the Atlantic via Davis Strait and the Labrador Sea, the narrower Nares Strait connects Baffin Bay with the Arctic Ocean. The bay is not navigable most of the year because of the ice cover and high density of floating ice, however, a polynya of about 80,000 km2, known as the North Water, opens in summer on the north near Smith Sound. Most of the life of the bay is concentrated near that region. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of Baffin Bay as follows, a line from Cape Sheridan, Grant Land to Cape Bryant, Greenland. The parallel of 70° North between Greenland and Baffin Land, the Eastern limits of the North-West Passages. The area of the bay has been inhabited since c. 500 BC, around AD1200, the initial Dorset settlers were replaced by the Thule peoples. Recent excavations also suggest that the Norse colonization of the Americas reached the shores of Baffin Bay sometime between the 10th and 14th centuries, the English explorer John Davis was the first recorded European to enter the bay, arriving in 1585. In 1612, a group of English merchants formed the Company of Merchants of London and their governor Thomas Smythe organized five expeditions to explore the northern coasts of Canada in search of a maritime passage to the Far East. Henry Hudson and Thomas Buttons explored Hudson Bay, William Gibbons Labrador, and Robert Bylot Hudson Strait, aboard the Discovery, Baffin charted the area and named Lancaster, Smith, and Jones Sounds after members of his company. By the completion of his 1616 voyage, Baffin held out no hope of an ice-free passage, over time, his account came to be doubted until it was confirmed by John Rosss 1818 voyage. More advanced scientific studies followed in 1928, in the 1930s and after World War II by Danish, currently, there are a few Inuit settlements on the Canadian coast of the bay, including Arctic Bay, Pond Inlet and Clyde River. Those settlements are accessed and supplied by air and annual sealifts, in 1975, a town was built at Nanisivik to support lead and zinc production at the Nanisivik Mine—the first Canadian mine in the Arctic. The mine was closed in 2002 due to declining resources and metal prices, whereas the town still has a functional seaport and an airport, as of the 2006 census, it has an official population of zero. Baffin Bay was the epicenter of a 7.3 magnitude earthquake in 1933 and this is the largest known earthquake north of the Arctic Circle. It caused no damage because of its location and the small number of the nearby onshore communities. The northwestern part of the bay remains one of the most seismically active regions in eastern Canada, five earthquakes of magnitude 6 have occurred here since 1933. The latest strong earthquake occurred on 15 April 2010 and had the magnitude of 5.1, Baffin Bay is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean bounded by the Baffin Island in the west, Greenland in the east, and Ellesmere Island in the north
8.
John Davis (English explorer)
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John Davis or Davys was one of the chief English navigators of Elizabeth I. He led several voyages to discover the Northwest Passage and served as pilot and he discovered the Falkland Islands in August 1592. It is important that Captain John Davis of Sandridge should not be confused with a contemporary, both served in the fleet of Captain James Lancaster during the first voyage of the East India Company to the East Indies. Davis was born in the parish of Stoke Gabriel in Devon circa 1550 and it has been suggested that he learned much of his seamanship as a child while plying boats along the river Dart, and went to sea at an early age. His childhood neighbours included Adrian Gilbert and Humphrey Gilbert and their half-brother Walter Raleigh, from early on, he also became friends with John Dee. He began pitching a voyage in search of the Northwest Passage to the queens secretary Francis Walsingham in 1583. Two years later, in 1585, the secretary relented and funded the expedition, which traced Frobishers route to Greenlands east coast, around Cape Farewell, sunshine attempted to circumnavigate the island from the east. His ships were attacked by Inuit in Hamilton Inlet. A third expedition in 1587 reached 72°12N and Disko Island before being repulsed by unfavorable winds, on his return, he charted the Davis Inlet in the coast of Labrador. The log of this remained a textbook model for later captains for centuries. In 1588, he seems to have commanded Black Dog against the Spanish Armada, in 1589, he joined the Earl of Cumberland as part of the Azores Voyage of 1589. In 1591 he accompanied Thomas Cavendish on the mans last voyage and his crew was forced to kill hundreds of penguins for food on the islands, but the stored meat spoiled in the tropics and only fourteen of his 76 men made it home alive. He narrowly escaped destruction from treachery at Achin on Sumatra, from 1601 to 1603, he accompanied Sir James Lancaster as Pilot-Major on the first voyage of the English East India Company. For his part Davis was to receive if the voyage doubled its original investment. Before departure, Davis had told London merchants that pepper could be obtained in Aceh at a price of four reals of eight per hundredweight whereas it was actually 20, when the voyage returned, Lancaster complained that Davis had been wrong about both the price and availability of pepper. On this journey, he was killed off Bintan Island near Singapore by one of his captive Japanese pirates whose vessel he had just seized, Daviss explorations in the Arctic were published by Richard Hakluyt and appeared on his world map. Davis himself published a treatise on practical navigation called The Seamans Secrets in 1594. The account of Daviss last voyage was written by Michelborne on his return to England in 1606 and his invention of the backstaff and double quadrant remained popular among English seamen until long after Hadleys reflecting quadrant had been introduced
9.
Northwest Passage
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For centuries explorers sought a navigable passage as a possible trade route. Until 2009, the Arctic pack ice prevented regular marine shipping throughout most of the year, Arctic sea ice decline has rendered the waterways more navigable. If, as has been claimed, parts of the end of the Passage are barely 15 metres deep. Fully loaded, Nordic Orion was too large to sail through the Panama Canal, between the end of the 15th century and the 20th century, colonial powers from Europe dispatched explorers in an attempt to discover a commercial sea route north and west around North America. The Northwest Passage represented a new route to the trading nations of Asia. England called the northern route the Northwest Passage. The desire to establish such a route motivated much of the European exploration of both coasts of North America, when it became apparent that there was no route through the heart of the continent, attention turned to the possibility of a passage through northern waters. There was a lack of knowledge about conditions, for instance. Explorers thought that a water route close to the North Pole must exist. The belief that a route lay to the far north persisted for several centuries, many ended in disaster, including that by Sir John Franklin in 1845. While searching for him the McClure Arctic Expedition discovered the Northwest Passage in 1850, in 1906, the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen first successfully completed a passage from Greenland to Alaska in the sloop Gjøa. Since that date, several fortified ships have made the journey, from east to west, the direction of most early exploration attempts, expeditions entered the passage from the Atlantic Ocean via the Davis Strait and through Baffin Bay. Five to seven routes have taken through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, via the McClure Strait, Dease Strait, and the Prince of Wales Strait. From there ships passed through waterways through the Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, on August 21,2007, the Northwest Passage became open to ships without the need of an icebreaker. According to Nalan Koc of the Norwegian Polar Institute, this was the first time the Passage has been clear since they began keeping records in 1972, the Northwest Passage opened again on August 25,2008. Thawing ocean or melting ice simultaneously opened up the Northwest Passage, awaited by shipping companies, this historic event will cut thousands of miles off their routes. We are going to see more and more as the years go by. Due to Arctic shrinkage, the Beluga group of Bremen, Germany, however, Canadas Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that ships entering the North-West passage should first report to his government
10.
Whaling
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Whaling is the hunting of whales for their usable products like meat, oil and blubber. Its earliest forms date to at least circa 3000 BC, various coastal communities have long histories of subsistence whaling and harvesting beached whales. By the late 1930s, more than 50,000 whales were killed annually In 1986, contemporary whaling is subject to intense debate. Pro-whaling countries, notably Japan, Norway, and Iceland, wish to lift the ban on certain whale stocks for hunting, anti-whaling countries and environmental groups oppose lifting the ban. Whaling began in times and was initially confined to coastal waters. Early whaling affected the development of disparate cultures – such as Norway. The Basques were the first to catch whales commercially, and dominated the trade for five centuries, spreading to the far corners of the North Atlantic and even reaching the South Atlantic. Although prehistoric hunting and gathering is considered to have had little ecological impact. Whale oil is used today and modern commercial whaling is primarily done for food. The primary species hunted are the common minke whale and Antarctic minke whale, recent scientific surveys estimate a population of 103,000 in the northeast Atlantic. International cooperation on whaling began in 1931 and culminated in the signing of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling in 1946. Its aim is to, provide for the conservation of whale stocks. The International Whaling Commission was set up under the ICRW to decide hunting quotas, non-member countries are not bound by its regulations and conduct their own management programs. The IWC voted on July 23,1982, to establish a moratorium on commercial whaling beginning in the 1985–86 season. Since 1992, the IWCs Scientific Committee has requested that it be allowed to give proposals for some whale stocks. At the 2010 meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Morocco, Japan, Norway and Iceland have urged the organisation to lift the ban. A coalition of anti-whaling nations has offered a plan that would allow these countries to continue whaling. Their plan would also completely ban whaling in the Southern Ocean, opponents of the compromise plan want to see an end to all commercial whaling, but are willing to allow subsistence-level catches by indigenous peoples
