That’s the one with the potatoes, right?
If I may be so bold: One of the things I love about this board is that I’m constantly finding answers to questions which I didn’t know I even wanted to ask. This is a perfect example. I believe that I was vaguely aware there was something called Nunavut in Canada, but that awareness never rose to the level of doing actual research.
Therefore, thanks to Jinx for asking the question. One of these days, the Slave river and the Great Slave lake are going to rise to much more importance with me and I’ll ask for appropriate information here (thereby giving other posters the answer to a question they didn’t know that they wanted to ask).
Bob
…well? what is it? 
Hamish likes to say that the history of Canada is the history of the shrinkage of the NWT.
The first European division of the west and north of what is now Canada (i.e. pretty much everything but the Maritimes and the Great Lakes/Saint Lawrence River Valley) was between the Hudson Bay watershed (Rupert’s Land) and the Arctic Ocean watershed (North-Western Territory). The Hudson’s Bay Company held a trade monopoly in Rupert’s Land (which included Manitoba, northern Quebec and Ontario, most of Saskatchewan, southern Alberta, and the eastern part of mainland Nunavut), but it also used the North-Western Territory (western mainland Nunavut, the NWT, Yukon, and northern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and BC) as a trading area.
A series of events led to the abolition of the trade monopoly and the transfer of the HBC lands to Canada in 1870. They formed the North-West Territories (less the Stikine territory, which had previously joined BC; the tiny postage-stamp of Manitoba; and the Arctic archipelago except southern Baffin Island, which remained direct possessions of the Crown until 1880.)
In 1867 the district of Keewatin, at the centre of the territory, was split off; it was run by the Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba. In 1905 they realized this was silly, and returned it to the NWT. In the same year, Alberta and Saskatchewan split off from the NWT, the latter taking the territorial capital of Regina with it.
Ontario snarfed off a big chunk in 1882, as did Quebec in 1898; Yukon separated in the latter year. Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec reached their current size in 1912.
The NWT was governed from Ottawa until 1967, when the government was moved to Yellowknife. In Tli Cho, Yellowknife is called Somba Ke, “place where the money is.”
The NWT, divided into the Mackenzie, Keewatin, and Franklin, remained at that size until 1999, when the creation of Nunavut split it up once more. Contrary to popular belief, the boundaries of Nunavut do not follow those of the previous districts, instead conforming approximately to Inuit ancestral lands.
Nowadays the NWT is home to a number of native groups, mainly Athabaskan people such as the Chipewyan, Slavey, Tli Cho, Sahtu, and Gwich’in, along with some Cree and Inuit residents.
No it isn’t. Iowa is a real state that even had a musical set in its locale (The Music Man).
The imaginary state of which you were thinking was North Dakota.
Either I’ve been whoosed (always a distinct possibility), or your misspelled Indiana.
Heck, we’re paying for this service…it’s good to hear what the BOARD has to say. I’ve Googled, and found a “welcome to Nunavut” site that left me with more questions than answers. But, I still don’t get this Iowa thing I’ve so much about lately. 
I thought it was an April Fool’s Day joke at first. That might now have been the best day to choose to make it official 
April 1, 1949 was the date of Newfoundland [and Labrador]'s confederation into Canada also, highlighting the farce of joining Canada, according to anti-Confederationists. Jokes aside, I don’t know the reason why both Nunavut and Newfoundland were made official on this day.
The Music Man is set in Iowa (the first line of the song introducing the setting: “Oh, there’s nothing halfway about the Iowa way to treat you if we treat you which we may not do at all”). There is, however, a song in the show about Indiana.
Well, you know the old joke:
Q: Why is Quebec separatism so popular in Newfoundland?
A: It would cut ten hours off the drive to Ontario!
Out of curiousity - what is the procedure to turn a territory into a province?
For instance, could Yukon become a province through a local vote, or do the rest of Canada have a say? Or is a matter of population (or a lack thereof)?
The bean-counters like it that way.
Seriously, I believe it’s for the very mundane reason that the fiscal year for the federal government is April 1 to March 31. A major change in status, like the division of a federal territory (NWT => NWT + Nunavut) or the addition of a new province (Newfoundland) carries a lot of financial implications for the feds, so it’s easier on the federal bean-counters if that change occurs at the stroke of midnight March 31/April 1.
Up until 1982, all it took was an Act of the federal Parliament, passed by the House of Commons and the Senate, with royal Assent. There was no need for a vote, by either the local population of the territory, or by the other provinces.
The first province created this way was Manitoba in 1870, when Parliament passed the Manitoba Act. Parliament passed this as part of a settlement with the population of the Red River territory, who were upset they had been annexed by Canada without proper consultation. The Manitoba Act was the product of several “Lists of Rights” produced by the provisional government of Red River, followed by negotiations between a Red River delegation and members of the federal Cabinet, notably George-Étienne Cartier.
Doubts were then raised whether Parliament had the authority to create new provinces out of the territories, so the Imperial Parliament passed Constitution Act, 1871 to ratify the creation of Manitoba and to give Parliament clear authority to create provinces in the future.
The key provision of the Constitution Act, 1871 was:
Thirty-five years later, Parliament used the power granted by section 2 to create the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan out of the North-West Territories, again by passing ordinary Acts of Parliament: Alberta Act and Saskatchewan Act.
However, with the patriation of the Constitution in 1982, and the creation of a new amending formula, questions were raised about whether it was appropriate for Parliament to create new provinces in this way. A new province is intitled to seats in the Commons and the Senate, and also affects the number of provincial votes needed to pass constitutional amendments. What if Parliament created a lot of tiny provinces, to pack the amending process?
So, the Constitution Act, 1982 deals with this issue as part of the amending formula:
Subsection 38(1) in turn provides that the general procedure for amending the Constitution requires the consent of both Houses of Parliament, plus two-thirds of the provinces, having at least 50% of the population.
You’ll note that nothing in these provisions requires any local assent, and there were no votes at the local level to create Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Yukon, or the NWT. However, there was a referendum on the creation of Nunavut, and my guess is that nowadays, there would also have to be a local vote in favour of the creation of a new province, as a matter of politicial and democratic legitimacy, even if not constitutionally required.
In summary, if there was a proposal to make any of the three territories into a province, it would need a constitutional amendment. No local vote is required, but would likely be held.
So, you’re saying that all along, Sirius Black was hiding in Canada?
I just don’t get this hostility to Jinx for asking his question. General Questions is for, well, general questions:
The goal is to eliminate ignorance by answering questions.
It doesn’t read:
Personally, I’ve asked questions that other people obviously thought were simplisitic, but they kindly either answered them, or pointed me to helpful links.
You think a question is absurdly simple, why not just ignore it?
Well, one of the GQ stickies pretty much does say this, at least for basic or dictionary-type questions:
Dictionary.com says:
I don’t want to derail this thread. There’s a pending pit thread, where any further debate on this should probably go.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=372269&page=2
There’s a pending pit thread that someone started. See reply
Well, I, for one, am thankful that there are people who every so often post a question that has to do with that vast area to the north. I’m not a total ignoramus, although I do play one in real life, and I do plead subject to a public edumacation here in the US of A in the 50’s and 60’s. Of course, that’s no excuse for never having explored the issue further, but the fact is that I never did learn much about the rest of the world, starting with the Canadians. And although I did learn to love the outdoors, starting with some wondrous trips into the boundary waters and Lake Nipigon, etc., that hardly counts as having a modicum of understanding of the country. I plead woefully ignorant of a marvelous nation. In recent years, politics have caused a greater and greater respect. But knowledge - still majorly lacking. So when a thread like this pops up, and the banter includes real facts, I feel terrible for the lack of a decent education we all received about this most wonderful nation. I read the posts carefully, to try to get as much as possible out of them. They’re wonderfully informative. It is, indeed, taking much longer than Cecil had thought, fighting all this ignorance. Keep it up. SDMB. Man, I love this place. Thanks, Jinx. xo, C.
It’s one of America’s best kept secrets. Can best be described as Norman Rockwell paintings brought to life.
But don’t worry, they do have electricity, alot of apartments come with free internet access, and there’s even a Hot Topic for the malcontents to enjoy. Now Idaho on the other hand… 