Hudson Bay, inland sea indenting east-central Canada. With an area of 316,000 square miles (819,000 square km), it is bounded by Nunavut territory (north and west), Manitoba and Ontario (south), and Quebec (east). It is connected with the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson Strait (northeast) and with the Arctic Ocean via the Foxe Channel (north).

The bay is named for Henry Hudson, who in 1610, on board the aptly named Discovery, was seeking a Northwest Passage to Asia. The east coast of Hudson Bay proper was mapped two years later; the south coast was traced in 1631, and the explorer Luke Foxe lent his name to Foxe Channel in the same year. The west coast was not mapped until the early 1820s, and the first bathymetric measurements of the area were made by Canadians during 1929–31. Air reconnaissance superseded naval researches from the second half of the 20th century.

Physical characteristics

Hudson Bay has a shallow and quite smooth floor, averaging 330 feet (100 metres) in depth, with a maximum around 900 feet (270 metres). The coast, situated in a region of permanently frozen earth layers, or permafrost, is a marsh-ridden lowland fed by lake waters and turbulent rivers. In the east and northeast the shores are high and sheer, but elsewhere they are low. Coniferous woods border the southerly James Bay, the shallowest part, but most of the shore is covered with dwarf birch, willow, aspen, and bushes, growing among moss, lichen, and grass.

water glass on white background. (drink; clear; clean water; liquid)
Britannica Quiz
Water and its Varying Forms

The eastern coast is bordered, at a distance of some 200 miles (300 km), with a set of islands and has cliffs formed of geologically ancient Precambrian (more than 540 million years old) crystalline and sedimentary rocks. The only other islands are a small cluster at the bay exit.

Hudson Bay has a severe continental climate. January temperatures average −20 °F (−29 °C), while July temperatures average only 47 °F (8 °C). Annual averages are 9.3 °F (−12.6 °C), but extremes range from −60 °F (−51 °C) in the winter to 80 °F (27 °C) in the summer. Spring is mild and cloudy, whereas summer is clear, though the bay itself is often coated with fog. Autumn starts cool, with frequent fogs, clearing later; early winter is very cold, clear, and calm, but this pattern is interrupted, after December, by strong winds and snowstorms. The spring thaw begins in late April.

The bay is filled by the numerous peripheral rivers and also by currents from Foxe Basin in the north, creating a counterclockwise general movement. Outflow occurs along the eastern Hudson Strait coast, rounding Chidley Cape (the northernmost tip of the Quebec-Newfoundland border), and passing into the Labrador Current. Flow is highest in July. Currents in the bay also respond to the fierce tidal flow off the Labrador coast.

Hudson Bay has much ice of local origin, and there is some influx of pack ice from Foxe Basin. Southern and central areas have solid, floating ice fields only during February and March. Salinity increases with depth: below 80 feet it is 31 parts per thousand (ppt); the layer above registers 23 ppt; and the upper 6 feet (2 metres) registers only 2 ppt when the current is strong and ice is melting. Water temperatures can be as low as 29 °F (−2 °C) at depth in August, although surface temperatures may reach 49 °F (9 °C) in September.

Are you a student?
Get a special academic rate on Britannica Premium.

Biological characteristics

Hudson Bay contains a great quantity of dissolved nutrient salts, because unicellular algae grow fast in the illuminated upper layers. Small, shrimplike crustaceans occupy the open waters and form a food source for mollusks, sea urchins, starfish, and worms, together with many other invertebrates living on the bottom.

Fish include numerous polar plaice, cod, halibut, salmon migrating to the lakes and rivers to spawn, and also freshwater species. Ringed, bearded, and Greenland seals inhabit the areas around openings in the ice. Walrus, dolphins, and killer whales live in the northern sector, and polar bears come down from the north to hunt seals on the ice. About 200 species of birds gather on the coasts and islands; they include ducks, gulls, eiders, loons, snow geese, swans, sandpipers, snow owls, and crows. There are also such herbivorous mammals as caribou, musk oxen, and rodents, as well as fur-bearing animals.

Human exploitation

Fishing and the hunting of sea mammals for their pelts are the main local occupations. Settlements along the rim of the bay include Coral Harbour (Salliq; on Southampton Island), Chesterfield Inlet (Igluligaarjuk; west of Southampton Island), Rankin Inlet (Kangiqtinq), Whale Cove (Tikirarjuaq), Arviat, Churchill (on the Manitoba coast), Fort Severn (Ontario), Fort Albany (on the western coast of James Bay), and Sanikiluaq (on the Belcher Islands). Inuit and Cree Indians are the largest resident groups. Population density is very low. For conservation purposes, the Canadian government has designated the whole Hudson Bay Basin a “mare clausum” (closed sea).

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.
Pejorative:
Eskimo
Key People:
Fridtjof Nansen
On the Web:
Polar Pod - The Inuit People (May 16, 2025)

Inuit, group of culturally and linguistically unique Indigenous peoples of the Arctic and subarctic regions whose homelands encompass Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland, a self-governing overseas administrative division of Denmark), Arctic Canada, northern and southwestern Alaska in the United States, and part of Chukotka in the Far East region of Russia. The culturally related Unangan/Unangas/Unangax̂ (Aleuts) live in the Aleutian Islands. As a group, Inuit occupy regions that are among the most extensive and northernmost in the world. The broader Inuit population is estimated to be more than 180,000.

The Inuit refer to themselves differently according to their dialects and sense of identity. In Greenland the terms Kalaallit (West Greenlanders), Inugguit (from Thule district), and Iit (East Greenlanders) are used. In Canada the terms Inuvialuit, Inuinnaat, and Inuit are applied. In northern Alaska the term Inupiat is used, and in southwestern Alaska the terms Yupiit and Cupiit are used. Other terms such as Yupiget, Yupik, and Sugpiat are used in Chukotka in Russia’s Far East and on St. Lawrence Island in Alaska.

The Inuit share a common language that gave birth to a variety of dialects as a result of the great distances between Inuit populations. Among those dialects are Iñupiatun, Inuvialuktun, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inuktun, Kalaallisut, and Tunumiisut. These dialects are closely related to the Sugcestun, Yugtun, and Yupigestun languages spoken by the Sugpiat, Yupiit, and Yupiget in Alaska and Chukotka. Some anthropologists argue that the Yupiit are culturally distinct from the other Inuit peoples, but the Yupiit have made a political decision to be designated as Inuit.

Arctic Ocean
More From Britannica
Arctic: Seasonally migratory peoples: the northern Yupiit and the Inuit

The term Eskimo, long applied to the Inuit, may have come from the Mi’kmaq of eastern Canada, who have a word in their language resembling Eskimo that means “the eaters of raw flesh.” Inuit never called themselves Eskimos until the term was introduced by the “Southerners.” Once Europeans and others began using the term in the early 16th century, it negatively denoted the eating of raw flesh, and it increasingly assumed a culturally negative connotation as the term perpetuated a stereotype that denigrated the Inuit. The word Inuit translates to “the human beings” in English. Despite the more recent interpretations of its meaning, the term Eskimo—once widely used in Alaska—is considered pejorative and offensive. By the 21st century it had been widely supplanted by the name Inuit.

The Inuit are politically organized within their own jurisdictions as well as internationally. Founded in 1977, the pan-Arctic Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) is a nongovernmental organization that seeks to strengthen unity among the Inuit, to promote their rights and interests internationally, and to ensure the endurance and growth of Inuit culture and societies. Inuit have entered into a variety of governance arrangements throughout their homeland to advance their right to self-determination. These include public governments, tribal governments, and Inuit self-governments. The self-determination and self-government of the Inuit are manifested through various forms, from the home rule government of the North Slope Borough in Alaska to Nunavut and Nunatsiavut in Canada, and the Greenland government in Kalaallit Nunaat has moved toward independence since the original 1979 Greenland Home Rule Act.

However, Inuit face multiple challenges, including language erosion, urbanization and shrinking communities, significant social and economic inequities compared with other populations of the countries in which they live, political marginalization and colonialism, and climate change.

One of the oldest known Inuit archaeological sites was found on Saglek Bay, Labrador, and dates to approximately 3,800 years ago. Another was found on Umnak Island in the Aleutians, for which an age of approximately 3,000 years was recorded.

Are you a student?
Get a special academic rate on Britannica Premium.

Inuit are culturally and biologically distinguishable from neighbouring Indigenous groups including Native Americans and the Sami of northern Europe. Studies comparing Eskimo-Aleut languages to other North American Indigenous languages indicate that the former arose separately from the latter. Physiologically, an appreciable percentage of Inuit people have the B blood type (ABO system), which seems to be absent from other Indigenous American groups. Because blood type is a very stable hereditary trait, it is believed that at least a part of the Inuit population differs in origin from other Indigenous American peoples.

Culturally, traditional Inuit life was totally adapted to an extremely cold snow- and icebound environment in which vegetable foods were almost nonexistent, trees were scarce, and caribou, seals, walruses, and various whales, seabirds, and fish were the major food sources. Inuit used harpoons to kill seals, which they hunted either on the ice or from kayaks—skin-covered one-person vessels. Whales were hunted by using a larger boat called an umiak (umiaq or umiat).

In the summer most Inuit families hunted caribou and other land animals with bows and arrows. Dogsleds were the basic means of transport on land. Inuit clothing was fashioned of caribou furs, which provided protection against the extreme cold. Most Inuit wintered either in snow-block houses generally referred to as igloos (iglus or igluvigaqs, depending on dialect) or in semisubterranean houses built of stone or sod over a wooden or whalebone framework. In summer many Inuit lived in animal-skin tents. Their basic social and economic unit was the nuclear family, and their belief system was animistic.

Inuit life has changed greatly because of increased contact with societies to the south. Snowmobiles have generally replaced dogsleds for land transport, and rifles have replaced harpoons for hunting purposes. Outboard motors, store-bought clothing, and numerous other manufactured items have entered the culture, and money, unknown in the traditional Inuit economy, has become a necessity. Many Inuit were made to abandon nomadic hunting and now live in settlements and cities, often working in mines and oil fields. Others, particularly in Canada, have formed cooperatives to market homemade handicrafts, fish catches, and tourism ventures. The creation of Nunavut, a new Canadian territory, in 1999 helped to support a revitalization of traditional Indigenous culture in North America.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Inuit Circumpolar Council Karla Jessen Williamson