__NOTOC__ Hamilton Inlet is a

fjord In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Ice ...

-like inlet of

Groswater Bay Groswater Bay ( Inuttitut: ''Kangerliorsoak''), also known by other names, is a bay in south central Labrador, Canada. Its Hamilton Inlet and Melville Lake extensions stretch inland. Names Groswater Bay's name is a compound formed from Frenc ...

on the

Labrador , nickname = "The Big Land" , etymology = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 ...

coast of the

Canadian province Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North ...

Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

. Together with

Lake Melville Lake Melville is an estuary of Hamilton Inlet (itself an extension of Groswater Bay) on the Labrador coast of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Comprising and stretching inland to Happy Valley-Goose Bay, it forms part of the l ...

, it forms its province's largest

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environment ...

, extending over inland to

Happy Valley-Goose Bay Happy Valley-Goose Bay (Inuit: ''Vâli'') is a town in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Located in the central part of Labrador on the coast of Lake Melville and the Churchill River, Happy Valley-Goose Bay is the largest popul ...

and primarily draining the Churchill River and

Naskaupi River The Naskaupi River is the second largest river in Labrador, Canada. Its drainage basin lies north of that of Labrador's longest river, the Churchill River. Like the Churchill River, it drains into the western end of the estuary known as Lake Mel ...

watersheds. Lake Melville is generally considered a part of Hamilton Inlet and extends west of the deep, narrow passage at the community of

Rigolet Rigolet ( Inuttitut: ''Tikigâksuagusik'') (population 310) is a remote, coastal Labrador community established in 1735 by French-Canadian trader Louis Fornel. The town is the southernmost officially recognized Inuit community in the world. Loca ...

Names

It was given its present name in honour of Charles Hamilton, commodore-governor of Newfoundland in the early 1800s and former namesake of the inlet's affluent, the Hamilton River (now the

Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1 ...

). Inclusive of Groswater Bay, it has also been known as Ivucktoke (

Inuttitut Inuttitut, Inuttut, or Nunatsiavummiutitut is a dialect of Inuktitut. It is spoken across northern Labrador by Inuit, whose traditional lands are known as Nunatsiavut. The language has a distinct writing system, created in Greenland in the 1760s ...

: ''Aivitok''); Eskimo or Esquimaux Bay (french: Baie des Esquimaux, "Bay of the Eskimos"); and St Louis Bay (french: Baie-St Louis).

History

In 1586, it was the scene of an

Inuit Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...

attack on the expedition of John Davis which killed two and wounded others.Libraries and Archives Canada.
John Davis, the Master Navigator
. Accessed 10 May 2012.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* .

External links

A map of Labrador showing Hamilton Inlet as excluding L. Melville

"River Flow and Winter Hydrographic Structure of the Hamilton Inlet-Lake Melville Estuary of Labrador"
which treats Hamilton Inlet as synonymous with Groswater Bay and exclusive of Lake Melville Estuaries of Canada Bays of Newfoundland and Labrador Labrador {{Labrador-geo-stub