Talk:Time in Nunavut

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Southampton Island — is the westernmost tip in a different zone than the rest of the island?[edit]

@Lachlb and Phoenix B 1of3: The map appearing in this article, File:UTC hue4map CAN-NU.png, shows that a tiny tip of Southampton Island is on CST year-round, while the rest of the island is on EST year-round. But the article text was edited to say (kind of clumsily) that all of Southampton Island is on EST year-round. The article Time in Canada shows a map File:UTC hue4map CAN.png, also made by User:Phoenix B 1of3, in which all of Southampton Island is on EST (the western tip does not have a different colour there). I looked up the applicable territorial statute [1] and regulation [2], and federal proclamation [3], which say that officially, the area of "Southampton Island and the islands adjacent to Southampton Island" are to observe Eastern Standard Time. There is no special mention of the western tip. Accordingly the time zone maps at the National Research Council website [4][5] also show all of Southampton Island in the same time zone. But I wonder, how did it get originally introduced into Wikipedia, that the western tip of Southampton Island is in a different time zone than the rest of the island? Is that just an error, or does it reflect reality, i.e. is there a community there which in fact observes a different time zone than the rest of the island, even though it isn't official for legal purposes? If so, that ought to be included in this article. Mathew5000 (talk) 01:10, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Facts707: Do you know of a good source for these edits that you made in 2017, saying that a small portion at the west of Southampton Island uses a different time zone than the rest of the island? See the links I cited above as well as this one (footnote 5). Also I notice that our article Southampton Island asserts that Coral Harbour is the only settlement on the island. If that's true, then how can it make sense to say that a tiny part of the western tip of the island, where nobody lives and there are presumably no clocks, has a separate time zone? Mathew5000 (talk) 01:38, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Mathew5000: Hi Mathew, sorry I can't take credit/responsibility for western Southampton Island, as it was already in the text and in the map prior to my edit, which merely made the text consistent with itself. This text was already there: "(except western Southampton Island)", so I changed "All of Southampton Island" to "Most of Southampton Island...". Cheers, Facts707 (talk) 04:43, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like the "(except western Southampton Island)" was in the first version of the article from 2009. Facts707 (talk) 05:20, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Current map according to the Atlas of Canada showing all of Southamption Island in the Eastern Time Zone, explictly zigging around western Southamption Island. Facts707 (talk) 05:20, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi again, looking back at my edits and the current Atlas of Canada map vs. the map in the article vs. the text in the article, I have reverted two of my edits to go with the original text and the current Atlas of Canada map. I think the map in the article was incorrect to begin with or at least is out of date. Cheers, Facts707 (talk) 05:58, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I updated the map and matching template to remove the small red area on western Southampton Island - was likely a misinterpretation by the original map creator of somewhat ambiguous text in the article. Please advise if I have misinterpreted something here. Cheers, Facts707 (talk) 06:27, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Facts707: Thanks. Now I understand (I think). The 85th meridian west cuts through Southampton Island. So the first iteration of this article (by @Skywayman:) mentioned "western Southampton Island" (i.e. the part of Southampton Island lying west of 85°W) as being an exception to the statement that the area between 85° West and 102° west is on Central Time. In other words, it was not trying to indicate that "western Southampton Island" is in a different time zone than the rest of Southampton Island. It was saying that "western Southampton Island" is in a different time zone than other parts of Nunavut that lie west of 85°W. I agree with you, that the small red area that had been in the map (which you have now fixed[6]) was likely a misinterpretation of the text in the article. Mathew5000 (talk) 07:17, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sources[edit]

Here are some sources, mostly from the CBC web site, regarding the debates in 1999-2001 about whether Nunavut should have one time zone or three:

  • "Nunavut plan for one time zone criticized". CBC News. 1999-09-16.
  • "Nunavut nixes three time zones". CBC News. 1999-10-14.
  • "Time zone vote too late". CBC News. 1999-11-03.
  • "Nunavut won't turn clocks back". CBC News. 2000-10-04.
  • "Nunavut lauded for time zone decision". CBC News. 2001-03-02.
  • Aaron Spitzer (2001-03-09). "Coral Harbour: the last time-zone hold-out". Nunatsiaq News.
  • "Nunavut goes back to three time zones". CBC Archives. 2001-03-31.

I think these debates were covered more extensively by Nunatsiaq News but most articles from that time seem to have been removed from the website. Or at any rate, the old URLs no longer work. Some of the sources are probably still available from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Mathew5000 (talk) 08:37, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm really confused about the map[edit]

  1. Why are there 4 items in the legend?
  2. Why does the map have two slightly-different shades of yellow?

It sounds like there should be 3 regions total, which means that the legend should have 3 items total, Eastern Standard Time, Central Time, and Mountain Time. And I would suggest including the word "Standard" here to remove ambiguity about whether DST is observed. So the current top line should be removed. And also, the map should be slightly updated, so that there is only one shade of yellow present. Is this correct? RheingoldRiver (talk) 01:31, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]