Kuujjuarapik and Whapmagoostui

Kuujjuarapik and Whapmagoostui present a unique social and geographic configuration within Quebec's northern landscape: these two twin villages, Inuit and Cree respectively, sit side by side at the mouth of the Great Whale River, their simultaneous creation resulting directly from the provisions of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement signed in 1975, which legally structured relations between Indigenous nations and the Quebec State across the entire northern territory. Kuujjuarapik, whose name means "the little great river" in Inuktitut, remains the southernmost of fourteen northern Nunavik villages under the Kativik Regional Administration, with a population of approximately 700 inhabitants who are predominantly Inuit, while Whapmagoostui, whose name means "the beluga river" in the Cree language, falls under the Cree Regional Administration and the Grand Council of the Crees, aligning itself with the eight other Cree villages in the James Bay region despite its northern remoteness from them. Until the 1980s, the site was known by the historic names of Poste-de-la-Baleine and Great Whale River, bearing witness to earlier commercial and missionary presence before the official settlement of local populations. Nestled amid the characteristic sand dunes of this coastal section of Nunavik, the area also serves as a secondary access point to Tursujuq National Park, whose southern administrative office is located here, and offers an authentic glimpse into this rare cohabitation between two distinct Indigenous nations sharing the same restricted territory along the shore of Hudson Bay.