Hopedale (Inuit language: Agvituk) is a town located in the north of Labrador, the mainland portion of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Hopedale is the legislative capital of the Inuit Land Claims Area Nunatsiavut, and where the Nunatsiavut Assembly meets. As of the 2021 census it has a population of 596. History Hopedale was founded as an Inuit settlement named Agvituk, Inuktitut for "place of the whales". In 1782, Moravian missionaries from Germany arrived in the area to convert the population. They renamed the settlement Hopedale (Hoffental in German) shortly afterward. The Hopedale Mission is still standing and is thought to be the oldest wooden-frame building in Canada standing east of Quebec. As such, it was named a National Historic Site of Canada. It is currently run by the Agvituk Historical Society as a part of a museum on the history of missionaries in the area. From 1953 to 1968 a joint Royal Canadian Air Force-United States Air Force's Hopedale Air Station was located on the hills above Hopedale. Civilian personnel lived in the main part of town. Since 1968 the area has remained abandoned other than maintenance of non-military communications towers nearby. Nunatsiavut On December 1, 2005, Hopedale became the legislative capital of the autonomous region of Nunatsiavut which is the name chosen by the Labrador Inuit when the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement Act was successfully ratified by the Canadian Government and the Inuit of Labrador. Nain, further north, is the administrative capital. The land claim cedes limited self-rule for the Nunatsiavut government in Northern Labrador and North-Eastern Quebec, granting title and aboriginal rights. The land that comprises the Nunatsiavut government is called the Labrador Inuit Settlement Area, or LISA, which amount to approximately . The Inuit of Labrador do not own this land per se, but they do have special rights related to traditional land use as aboriginals. That said, the Labrador Inuit will own within the Settlement Area, officially designated as Labrador Inuit Lands. The Agreement also provides for the establishment of the Torngat Mountains National Park Reserve, consisting of about of land within LISA. As legislative capital, Hopedale is the location of the Nunatsiavut Assembly Building. Demographics In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Hopedale had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of