Agvituk

Agvituk, the “place of the whales”, was an Inuit whaling settlement on the coast of northern Labrador. Its sheltered waters lay along routes travelled by Inuit between the northern coast and the shores farther south. In the eighteenth century, families lived in substantial communal houses here, making the settlement an important meeting place as well as a base for hunting at sea.

Moravian missionaries chose the site for their third Labrador mission in 1782, calling it Hoffenthal, or Hopedale. Jens Haven brought building materials from Nain aboard the Amity, and the mission house served for worship as well as accommodation. Mission records counted about seventy Inuit in three houses at Agvituk that year. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, a religious awakening led many to embrace Christianity and move closer to the mission; a church was built in 1806.