Rigolet (

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 ...

: ''Tikigâksuagusik'') (population 310) is a remote, coastal

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

community established in 1735 by French-Canadian trader

Louis Fornel Louis Fornel (August 20, 1698 – May 30, 1745) was a Canadian merchant, explorer, and seigneur in New France. Involved in maritime trade and both born and married into prominent Quebec families, Louis Fornel was among the partners Louis Bazil co ...

. The town is the southernmost officially recognized

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 ...

community in the world. Located on

Hamilton Inlet __NOTOC__ Hamilton Inlet is a fjord-like inlet of Groswater Bay on the Labrador coast of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Together with Lake Melville, it forms its province's largest estuary, extending over inland to Happy Va ...

, which is at the entrance to fresh water

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 ...

; Rigolet is on salt water and is accessible to navigation during the winter. Although there is no road access, the community is accessible by snowmobile trail, the

Rigolet Airport Rigolet Airport is located adjacent to Rigolet, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into ...

, or seasonally via a coastal ferry (MV Kamutik W) from

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 ...

. The

Hudson Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business div ...

established its trading post in Rigolet in 1836. The Hudson Bay Company remained an active part of the community until 1987 when it was bought by the North West Company and was renamed the "Northern Store". Rigolet is part of the Labrador Inuit Land Claims area and is overseen by the

Nunatsiavut Nunatsiavut (; iu, italics=no, ᓄᓇᑦᓯᐊᕗᑦ) is an Autonomous administrative division, autonomous area claimed by the Inuit in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The settlement area includes territory in Labrador extending to the Quebe ...

government. Approximately 5% of Rigolet's population is non Inuit. Although there are still

coniferous Conifers are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All extant ...

trees surrounding the village, a few kilometres northeast into Hamilton Inlet, the terrain changes drastically to a sub-arctic

tundra In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless moun ...

Minke The minke whale (), or lesser rorqual, is a species complex of baleen whale. The two species of minke whale are the common (or northern) minke whale and the Antarctic (or southern) minke whale. The minke whale was first described by the Danish na ...

and

humpback whale The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh up to . The hump ...

s are commonly observed in nearby waters. In

John Wyndham John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris (; 10 July 1903 – 11 March 1969) was an English science fiction writer best known for his works published under the pen name John Wyndham, although he also used other combinations of his names ...

's post-apocalyptic novel ''

The Chrysalids ''The Chrysalids'' (United States title: ''Re-Birth'') is a science fiction novel by British writer John Wyndham, first published in 1955 by Michael Joseph. It is the least typical of Wyndham's major novels, but regarded by some as his best. A ...

'', set at an unspecified future date, Rigolet has become the town of Rigo and the capital of Labrador (which is one of the few habitable areas left in North America). Rigolet is home to the longest

boardwalk A boardwalk (alternatively board walk, boarded path, or promenade) is an elevated footpath, walkway, or causeway built with wooden planks that enables pedestrians to cross wet, fragile, or marshy land. They are also in effect a low type of bridge ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. Rigolet's boardwalk stretches over 8 km, from Rigolet to Double Mer Point. The first phase of the boardwalk was completed in 1997 and the last extension of the boardwalk was completed in 2015.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultur ...

, Rigolet had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

References

External links

Nunatsiavut Government homepageOfficial site of the Town of RigoletInformation on area ferry servicesLabrador road, trail and ferry mapRigolet - Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, vol. 4, p. 599-600.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rigolet, Newfoundland and Labrador Inuit community governments in Newfoundland and Labrador Populated coastal places in Canada Populated places in Labrador Hudson's Bay Company trading posts Road-inaccessible communities of Newfoundland and Labrador

Demographics

See also

References

External links