Pang is still Pang

Pangnirtung residents have voted to keep their community’s original English name, even though its real meaning is obscured by a faulty rendition of the Inuktitut word it’s based on.

This summer, some residents petitioned to change the English name to Panniqtuuq, which means “place of many caribou” in Inuktitut and was the word originally used to describe the area.

In a referendum on Dec. 13, residents voted to keep what has now become the hamlet’s English name: Pangnirtung.