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This map shows "Frobushers Straightes" leading to
"Cathaia" (China) across northern North America.
These straits provided a short and easy route to the Orient according
to George Best, one of Frobisher's captains
who published the map in 1578.
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Frobisher's newly discovered lands were included in maps drawn by
James Beare (left), principal surveyor of the expedition, and
by Michael Lok (below).
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John Dee is credited with having first
conceived the idea of a British Empire, and Frobisher's land-taking in
Arctic Canada was the impetus for this idea. In the centuries that followed,
British exploration and commerce gradually penetrated Arctic Canada, and
British claims to possession of the area were assumed by most
European nations. British sovereignty in the Arctic was passed to
the new nation of Canada in 1880.
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In 1993 the Tungavik Federation of Nunavut negotiated a
land claim
agreement with Queen Elizabeth II in Right of Canada. The agreement
returns a measure of sovereignty to the descendants of the original Inuit
occupants of much of Arctic Canada, and took effect April 1, 1999. At the
same time, the Northwest Territories was divided and the new Territory of
Nunavut
established. The capital of Nunavut is
Iqaluit,
a town at the head of Frobisher Bay in the very area where
over 400 years ago Martin Frobisher sought the Northwest Passage and
claimed the land for Elizabeth I.
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Map of the northern world showing lands occupied by the Inuit and the
new territory of Nunavut.
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Inuit Homelands |
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The political changes which began as a result of the Frobisher
voyages have finally come full circle.
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