This area has traditionally been home to the Indigenous peoples of the Subarctic, that is the First Nations, who were hunters of moose, freshwater fishers and trappers.

[6] Despite its claim that Rupert's Land was a proprietary colony, the HBC controlled only the areas around its forts (trading posts) on the shores of James Bay and Hudson Bay, and never sought to impose political control on the First Nations peoples, whose co-operation was needed for the fur trade.

For its first century, the HBC never ventured inland, being content to have the First Nations peoples come to its forts to trade fur for European goods.

[7] The HBC started to move inland only in the late 18th century to assert its claim to Rupert's Land in response to rival fur traders coming out of Montreal who were hurting profits by going directly to the First Nations.

[8] The HBC's claim to Rupert's Land, which, as the company was the de facto administrator, included the North-Western Territory, was purchased by the Canadian government in 1869.

The Inuit lived in groups that pursued a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, with a basic governmental system in which power was exercised by the local headman, a person acknowledged to be the best hunter,[10] and the angakkuq, sometimes called shamans.

[14] This area was not part of the early 20th century treaty process, and aboriginal title to the land has been acknowledged by the Canadian government with the creation of autonomous territories instead of the Indian reserves of further south.

Very few non-Indigenous people have settled in these areas, and the residents of the far north represent less than 1% of Canada's total population.

Since 1925, Canada has claimed the portion of the Arctic between 60°W and 141°W longitude, extending all the way north to the North Pole: All islands in the Arctic Archipelago and Herschel, off the Yukon coast, form part of the region and are Canadian territory, and the territorial waters claimed by Canada surround these islands.

Canada and the Soviet Union/Russia have long claimed that their territory extends according to the sector principle to the North Pole.

Foreign ships, both civilian and military, are allowed the right of innocent passage through the territorial waters of a littoral state subject to conditions in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

As of 2023, ice and freezing temperatures have always made this a minor issue, but climate change may make the passage more accessible to shipping.

[18] Using the political definition of the three northern territories, the north, with an area of 3,921,739 km2 (1,514,192 sq mi), makes up 39.3% of Canada.

[15] The region is heavily endowed with natural resources, but in most cases they are very expensive to extract and situated in fragile environmental areas.

immigrants from around the world; of the territories, Yukon has the largest percentage of non-Aboriginal inhabitants, while Nunavut the smallest.

The ground in the Arctic is mostly composed of permafrost, making construction difficult and often hazardous, and agriculture virtually impossible.

[25][26] For more than half of the year, much of Northern Canada is snow- and ice-covered, with some limited moderation by the relatively warmer waters in coastal areas, with temperatures generally remaining below the freezing mark from October to May.

[27] Sea ice has decreased in the region, leading to higher summer surface air temperatures.