Our Series on Territorial Oddities takes us to the Hudson Bay in Northern Canada. While that region was for a long time disputed, first between the French and English traders, and later between several British and Canadian entities, the final border between the Canadian Provinces of Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, to the South, and Nunavut to the North runs exactly on the shoreline of the James Bay and Hudson Bay. All islands in those bays were deemed traditional hunting grounds for Nunavut Inuit hunters, and therefore part of the Territory.
This makes for very strange local situations: a sand bar less than 100m offshore near a Quebec or Ontario village is under the juridiction of Nunavut, while no permanent settlement of that territory is found for hundreds of kilometers. This has been a source of contention for a long time, particularly in Quebec, where a separatist sentiment is strong and the situation under international law would become highly conflictual.
The Hudson Bay Islands
