Friday, May 18, 2007

Welcome to our friends from Nunavut!

Last week, ScottyUrb from Great Lakes, Great Times, Great Scott did a piece welcoming his visitors from Kassel, Germany. Out of the hundreds of posts that Michigan bloggers do every week, this piece in particular stood out for several reasons.

1) It was fun to read.
2) It is interesting to see where my blog visitors hail from all over the world.
3) During a summer spent in Europe, I had the opportunity to briefly visit Kassel.

Thanks to the wonders of technology, it is possible to tell several things about people who read blogs and what you discover is pretty fascinating.

Just yesterday, I had a visitor from Iqaluit. For those of you not up to speed on your Canadian geography, Iqaluit is the capital of the newest (1999) Canadian territory, Nunavut, pronounced just like it's spelled - Nun-of-vut.

Besides being a regular vacationer to Canada, along with some very beautiful Michigan spots, I had a class on Canadian government in college. It was a fascinating class, there's something to be said for a three-party form of government and socialized medicine, but learning about Nunavut was one of my favorite parts.

A couple of interesting bits o' info from Wikipedia about Nunavut -
  • Nunavut is both the least populated and the largest of the provinces and territorities of Canada. It has a population of only 29,474[1] spread over an area the size of Western Europe.
  • Nunavut means 'our land' in Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit. Its inhabitants are called Nunavummiut, singular Nunavummiuq. Along with Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, English, and French are also official languages.
  • They have a unicameral legislative body, with no party system, and its legislature is consensus-based.
  • Nunavut Arctic College has a cool website available to read in either English or Inuktitut.
As it has been for the last couple years, Nunavut remains on my list of places to visit before I die. Anyone for a group trip? :-)