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Ivujivik ( , meaning "Place where ice accumulates because of strong currents", or "Sea-ice crash Area") is a northern village (Inuit community) in Nunavik, Quebec, and the northernmost settlement in any Canadian province, although there are settlements further north in the territories. Its population in the 2021 Canadian census was 412.
Policing for Ivujivik is provided by the Kativik Regional Police Force.
The area is ice-free for 20 working days a year in the summer. There are no road links to the North American road system, nor is this (or any other) Nunavik community linked by road to any of the other villages in the region. The village is served by Ivujivik Airport.
The village itself is located on a small sandy cove between imposing cliffs that drop steeply into Digges Sound. Here the strong currents from Hudson Bay and the Hudson Strait clash, sometimes even crushing trapped animals between the Drift ice. Directly north across the sound are Digges Islands. Farther north in the Hudson Strait are Nottingham and Salisbury Islands.
The Hudson's Bay Company established a trading post on Erik Cove near Cape Wolstenholme in 1909. A Catholic mission was established on the village's current site in 1938. But both locations only remained seasonal camps. In 1947, the HBC post at Erik Cove closed and a new outpost was set up in Ivujivik. This marked the beginning of the modern village as nomadic Inuit finally began to settle permanently. Not until the 1960s did the Government of Canada begin to deliver health and social services. In 1962, the Inuit established a cooperative that has allowed the community to better structure its local economy and develop new activities such as sculpture, crafts, and tourism focusing on hunting and fishing.
Ivujivik, along with Puvirnituq, was one of two Inuit villages that refused to sign the 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. In protest, it formed the Inuuqatigiit Tunngavingat Nunamini (ITN) movement. Nonetheless, it was gradually represented by the Kativik Regional Government, and it officially joined the agreement in 2015.
In 2001, 285 of the 298 (about 96%) persons were considered aboriginal. As with many Inuit villages, there is a large youth contingent. In 2006, 42.9% of the population was below the age of fifteen. The median age was 19.1.
In 2001, unemployment was at 18.2 percent. The median income for the same census was $14,624 (in Canadian dollars.) 72 percent of the workforce walked or biked to work.
In 1980 there was a community boycott against the Kativik School Board as people in the community disliked the James Bay Agreement and therefore shunned the school district as they perceived it as close to the people who accepted the agreement. That year, the government of Quebec planned to open its own school there.
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