Photo: Gordon Leggett · CC BY-SA 4.0Few places are as safe from hazards as Gjoa Haven: it beats 97% of Canadian towns
The burned-area map is nearly blank around Gjoa Haven, 0% within 25 km since 1986, 0.000% a year. Seismic risk in Gjoa Haven sits near the middle: $0.019 of expected damage per $1,000 of buildings a year, the typical town $0.030. Fewer homes than usual carry radon here, 0% over the guideline where the typical town has 6.6%. Hazard risk gives Gjoa Haven a grade of A+, from earthquakes and radon alone.
What stands out about Gjoa Haven’s hazards
For Gjoa Haven, from NRCan’s seismic model, Health Canada’s radon survey, the national burned-area record and the flood map inventory.
What Gjoa Haven faces
Each hazard against its own yardstick; meters run from low to high on that yardstick.
Wildfire
Earthquakes
Radon
Flood study
Gjoa Haven grades A+ for hazard risk
Earthquake risk and radon make Gjoa Haven’s grade; wildfire can only lower it, never raise it, and flood studies are listed but not scored.
How sure: Earthquake losses are a model’s expectation over many years, not a forecast for any one. The radon share rests on 78 home tests in the survey area, so a few homes move it. The burned-area record misses fires under about 10 ha and most grass and farm fires.
Little of the land around Gjoa Haven has burned: 0% within 5 km, 0% within 25 km since 1986
Fires mapped since 1986 around where Gjoa Haven’s residents live, and the fuel next to their homes.
In a typical year 0.000% of the land near Gjoa Haven burns; the typical Canadian town sees 0.000%, and both are low.
Land that isn’t forest covers nearly all the ground around Gjoa Haven: forest fuel is 0% within 5 km and 0% within 25 km.
Shares of land within 5 and 25 km of populated blocks: burned at least once in 1986–2025 (CWFIS burned-area composite), forest fuel and grass (fire behaviour fuel types, 2026, 250 m grid).
Only 7.5% of Canada’s 2,610 towns are above the low band, which holds 92%; Gjoa Haven, at a rounded zero, is far from them.
Bands of the yearly burn rate: low under 0.05%, moderate under 0.25%, high under 1%, very high 1% or more; towns of 2,500 people or more.
Fire danger and active fires (CWFIS)
Canadian Wildland Fire Information System: National Burned Area Composite 1986–2025 and fire behaviour fuel types (2026), Natural Resources Canada. Measured within 25 km and 5 km of each populated dissemination area; past fire, not a forecast.
No flood study is listed for Gjoa Haven
Flood studies whose area touches Gjoa Haven, from NRCan’s inventory, each linked to its owner.
Nationally, Gjoa Haven has no listed flood study; the municipality is the place to ask.
Towns with a flood study on file
Gjoa Haven has no flood study on file; 58% of Canada’s towns have one.
NRCan Canada Flood Map Inventory: a study footprint touching the town’s boundary; towns of 2,500 people or more.
Nothing here counts toward Risk; the studies are pointers to the maps their owners keep for Gjoa Haven.
The inventory’s own caution (NRCan): “The Canada Flood Map (CFM) does not include every flood hazard map in Canada and may be incomplete or contain inaccuracies. It should not be relied upon as the official source of flood mapping information. Furthermore, if a map appears to be missing, this does not necessarily mean that the area has never been mapped. For the official version of a map, updated information, or confirmation of applicable regulations, please contact the local authority responsible for flood mapping.”
Ordinary seismic risk in Gjoa Haven: $0.019 per $1,000 of buildings a year
NRCan’s seismic risk model: the damage shaking is expected to do to buildings each year, on average over many years.
0.6 times the typical $0.030: Gjoa Haven’s $0.019 is ordinary.
Shaking damage a year per $1,000 of building value
Gjoa Haven’s $0.019 is measured against Canada’s median of $0.030, since few towns in Nunavut reach 2,500 people.
NRCan seismic risk model (2022): mean yearly building loss per $1,000 of value; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
66% of Canada’s 2,611 towns expect more shaking damage than Gjoa Haven.
Each column: the share of Canada’s towns of 2,500 people or more in that range of yearly loss per $1,000 (NRCan, 2022).
What a quake does after the shaking, fire, landslides, tsunami, falls outside NRCan’s figure for Gjoa Haven.
Natural Resources Canada, Canada’s Seismic Risk Model (2022), by census subdivision (2016 boundaries; a few 2021 subdivisions take their residents’ mean).
0% of homes tested around Gjoa Haven are over the radon guideline
Health Canada’s survey of long-term home tests: the share above the 200 Bq/m³ guideline. · Measured across the Nunavut health region: radon tests
Gjoa Haven’s survey area reads 0% over the guideline, under the typical Canadian town’s 6.6%.
Tested homes over 200 Bq/m³
Over 600 Bq/m³
With only a few towns in Nunavut, there is no local median to set Gjoa Haven’s 0% against, so the bars use Canada’s.
Health Canada radon survey (2009–2011), by 2007 health region; medians of towns of 2,500 people or more.
Under 5% puts Gjoa Haven with 37% of Canada’s 2,611 towns; 63% have more high tests.
Each bar: the share of Canada’s towns of 2,500 people or more whose survey area had that share of tests over 200 Bq/m³.
Radon varies from house to house in Gjoa Haven, so the survey is a reason to test, not a result for yours.
Health Canada, Cross-Canada Survey of Radon Concentrations in Homes (2009–2011).
Where to get warnings in Gjoa Haven
Environment and Climate Change Canada issues the weather alerts for Gjoa Haven; Alert Ready carries the urgent ones to phones, radio and TV.
| Alert | What it means |
|---|---|
| Warning | Severe weather is happening or about to: act now. |
| Watch | Conditions favour severe weather: be ready. |
| Advisory | Weather that is less severe but could disrupt the day. |
| Special weather statement | Unusual weather worth knowing about. |
| Special air quality statement | Poor air, often wildfire smoke. |
For fires near Gjoa Haven, the national fire information system maps danger and active fires daily; local authorities give any evacuation order.
Weather alerts (ECCC) · Alert Ready · Fire danger and active fires (CWFIS)
Get ready for what Gjoa Haven faces
Practical steps for Gjoa Haven’s hazards, most pressing first.
- Test for three months in winter.
- Over 200 Bq/m³: fix it.
- Kits are cheap; pros test too.
- Never drive through floodwater.
- Move papers and medicines upstairs.
- Ask whether your street is mapped.
- Clear needles and wood nearby.
- Keep a grab-and-go bag ready.
- In smoke, stay in; filter air.
- Has it had a radon test?
- Ask the municipality for flood maps.
- Are flood and wildfire insured?
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Wildfire counts one way. For Gjoa Haven, wildfire means how much nearby land burned in the past forty years, a one-way input that can pull Risk down and nothing more.
- Flood studies aren’t flood zones. NRCan’s inventory says where flood mapping exists, not where water goes; the map’s owner is the authority for Gjoa Haven.
- Radon is a survey. About 14,000 homes were tested across Canada in 2009–2011, and the share over the guideline for Gjoa Haven is its health region’s, the survey’s design unit.
- Earthquakes are modelled. Seismic risk is NRCan’s model of yearly building losses from shaking, averaged over many years and given for Gjoa Haven’s census subdivision (a neighbourhood shows its city’s).
Questions about flooding and hazards in Gjoa Haven
How is Gjoa Haven’s Hazard risk Grade worked out?
Gjoa Haven’s Hazard risk grade is A+, built on earthquakes and radon with a one-sided wildfire input.
How big is the earthquake risk in Gjoa Haven?
Expected earthquake damage in Gjoa Haven comes to $0.019 a year for each $1,000 that buildings are worth.
Is Gjoa Haven at risk of wildfire?
No meaningful wildfire history near Gjoa Haven: 0% of nearby land since 1986, band low.
Does Gjoa Haven flood?
The inventory has 0 studies for Gjoa Haven, and an empty list isn’t a clean bill: the municipality holds any flood maps.
Is radon a problem in Gjoa Haven?
The area’s survey found 0% of 78 tested homes above Health Canada’s guideline, so a three-month test is worth doing in Gjoa Haven.
Seismic risk: Natural Resources Canada. Radon: Health Canada. Wildfire: Canadian Wildland Fire Information System. Flood studies: Natural Resources Canada, Canada Flood Map Inventory. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Canada.
Sources: NRCan, Canada’s Seismic Risk Model 2022 · Health Canada, Cross-Canada Survey of Radon Concentrations in Homes · CWFIS, National Burned Area Composite and FBP fuel types · NRCan, Canada Flood Map Inventory. Under the Statistics Canada Open Licence.
Adapted from Statistics Canada (Census of Population 2021, population estimates 2025, 2021 census boundaries) under the Statistics Canada Open Licence; this does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada. Neighbourhood names in some cities © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).