page_title: Alert, Nunavut
section_title: Recent history (1971–present)
hierarchical_section_title: Alert, Nunavut / History / Recent history (1971–present)
caption_attribution_description: English: Ribbon cutting ceremony at the official opening of the Alert Background Air Pollution Monitoring Network (BAPMoN) Observatory.
context_page_description: Alert, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada, is the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world, at latitude 82°30'05" north, 817 kilometres from the North Pole. The entire population of the census subdivision Baffin, Unorganized, is located here. As of the 2016 census, the population was reported as 62, an increase of 57 over the 2011 census. It takes its name from HMS Alert, which wintered 10 km east of the present station, off what is now Cape Sheridan, in 1875–1876.
  Alert has many temporary inhabitants, as it hosts a military signals intelligence radio receiving facility at Canadian Forces Station Alert, as well as a co-located Environment Canada weather station, a Global Atmosphere Watch atmosphere monitoring observatory, and the Alert Airport.
context_section_description: In August 1975, Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau and his then 3-year-old son and future prime minister, Justin Trudeau visited the station and nearby Ward Hunt Island. In August 1986, the Government of Canada opened Alert Background Air Pollution Monitoring Network in Alert.
  By the 1990s, the remaining buildings for the original weather station had fallen into a state of disrepair and were burned in the summer of 1996, leaving only the hydrogen shed and a wooden outhouse. The weather station and observatory offices were moved to Polaris Hall.
  In early April 2006, the Roly McLenahan Torch that was used to light the flame at Whitehorse, Yukon, for the Canada Winter Games passed through Alert. While the Canada Games torch was supposed to pass over the North Pole, bad weather prevented a Canadian military Twin Otter from making the trip. The torch did not travel outside Alert that weekend (April 9–12). In August 2006, then-Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, made a visit to Alert as part of his campaign to promote Canadian sovereignty in the north.
  On November 8, 2009, the 2010 Winter Olympics torch relay arrived at Alert via airplane from Churchill, Manitoba, reaching its most northerly point on land. The next day it travelled to Iqaluit.
  On January 19 and 20, 2015, Governor General David Johnston flew into Alert on a C-17 Globemaster transport from CFB Trenton. He toured Alert, received an overview of its operations, met with civilian and military personnel and presided over a change-of-command.
caption: The opening of the Alert Background Air Pollution Monitoring Network in 1986.
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