Nunainguk

Nunainguk, known to Moravian missionaries as Nain, stands on a sheltered inlet of the Labrador coast. Inuit families had long travelled and hunted among the bays and islands of this shore. Seals supplied meat and skins, and the coast formed part of a network of visits and exchanges extending far to the north and south.

In 1771 Jens Haven and fellow Moravians founded their first permanent Labrador mission here, after earlier attempts to establish a station on the coast had failed. They had learned the Inuit language in Greenland and combined religious instruction with trade. An Inuk named Kingminguse was baptised there as Petrus in 1776; he later returned to southern Labrador. Nain became the starting point for further Moravian stations at Okak in 1776 and Hopedale in 1782, drawing the missionaries into the wider world of Inuit travel and exchange.