Ungava Peninsula

The Ungava Peninsula, also known officially as Péninsule d'Ungava, forms the far northwestern section of Quebec’s Labrador Peninsula in Canada. It is bordered by Hudson Bay to the west, Hudson Strait to the north, and Ungava Bay to the east, spanning roughly 252,000 square kilometers (97,000 square miles). Its most northerly point, Cape Wolstenholme, holds the distinction of being the northernmost point of both Quebec and any Canadian province. This landmass sits on the Canadian Shield and is covered entirely by treeless tundra, cut through by numerous rivers and glacial lakes that generally run parallel from east to west. The ice that once covered it did not fully melt until about 6,500 years ago—some 11,500 years after the Last Glacial Maximum—and scientists believe this region was the ancient core from which the Laurentide Ice Sheet expanded across much of North America during the last ice age. The peninsula falls within Quebec’s proposed Nunavik autonomous area.

Demographics: The peninsula is home to an estimated 10,000 people, 90% of whom are Inuit, living in 12 coastal villages. The largest settlement, Kuujjuaq, serves as the capital of the Kativik Regional Government, which administers the entire peninsula. Offshore islands belong to the territory of Nunavut. Access is by air services connecting to southern Quebec, and by seasonal shipping once sea ice breaks up. Thick permafrost makes conventional building techniques impractical in some locations.

Geology: The Ungava Peninsula lies on the northeastern Canadian Shield, where the Rae Province meets the Superior Province. Its bedrock consists of Archean rocks, roughly 2.7 to 2.9 billion years old, from the Douglas Harbour Domain. These are topped by Paleoproterozoic supracrustal sequences, about 1.8 to 2.1 billion years old, and cut by Paleoproterozoic diabase dykes dating to around 2.0 to 2.2 billion years. The supracrustal rocks form nappes that are part of the Ungava and Labrador troughs. East of the Labrador Trough axis, Paleoproterozoic deformation reworked both the Archean rocks and the diabase dykes. Metamorphic conditions, which match the deformation, intensify from west to east, shifting from middle amphibolite to granulite facies. Uranium-lead isotope analyses of zircon give secondary ages around 1,790 million years, interpreted as the time of metamorphism. This suggests a reactivation of the northeastern Superior Province margin during a Paleoproterozoic tectono-metamorphic event, likely from a continental collision (Madore, 2001). The Pingualuit impact crater is also found on the peninsula.

Fauna: The Ungava brown bear, an extinct population of grizzly bear, takes its name from this region. The peninsula is also home to the Ungava seal, a subspecies of the harbor seal.

Climate: The climate is extremely cold, classified as Dfc in the Köppen system, because the Labrador Current keeps the area—and all of northern Quebec—cooler in summer than other regions at similar latitudes.