Photo: a special place for Nunavut’s fossils and artifacts

Here are some of the Nunavut fossil specimens held at the Canadian Museum of Nature in a special row of cabinets reserved for Nunavut inside their Gatineau storage facility. This photo shows fossils collected on Devon Island in the summer of 2003. An identification card with each specimen bears a tiny Nunavut flag, signifying that under the terms of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, they belong to Nunavut. But until the territory acquires a museum of its own, this is where they’ll stay. In addition to materials related to natural history, since 2012 the CMN has accepted archeological specimens related to human history, said Kieran Shepherd, the museum’s curator of paleobiology. That’s because there’s not enough room at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife and the Canadian Museum of History in Ottawa. (PHOTO BY JIM BELL)