Along the northwest shore of Dorset Island, surrounded on one side by rocky hills and on the other, by Hudson Strait, lies Cape Dorset - a community that, since the 1950s, has come to be known as the Inuit art capital of the world.

In the distance are the jagged outlines of islands, and the inlets of Baffin Island's most southern coast. Like most other settlements in Nunavut, Cape Dorset is a modern community, with winding gravel roads, small wooden houses, schools, stores, hotels, a nursing station, government offices and churches. But it is Cape Dorset's outstanding artists and their printmaking and stone-carving shop that have earned the town renown.

Each year, art lovers and naturalists flock to Cape Dorset to enjoy the treasures of the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative and to chat with the acclaimed artists who work here. In 1995, then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl made the visit with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Visitors come, as well, to absorb the rich heritage of local Inuit, and to tour the breathtaking arctic landscape with it's abundance of wildlife.

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