The Globe and Mail

In Nunavut, Canada's newest territory, the homicide rate this year is nine times the national average and violent crime is seven times greater. The rate of sexual assault is more than 1,270 per cent above the average and climbing. And it?s getting worse. As the crime rate in the rest of North America continues to drop, Nunavut?s has grown 100 per cent since the territory was formed in 1999. The pristine beauty of Cape Dorset gives little hint of the troubles faced by a population struggling to cope with a dramatic transition between their traditional lifestyle of hunting and fishing and their new community based living with a modern economy.

Artist E.J. Etorolopiaq, is carving a drum dancer out of serpentine, outside of his in-laws home in Apex, Iqaluit, Nunavut on Nov. 6, 2010. Many men depend on the sales of their carvings for income, but some experts say that the demand for traditional art is declining as the market has become saturated.

Inuit carver Johnny Papikatuk is covered with stone dust while carving outside of his home in Cape Dorset, Nunavut on November 9, 2010. The majority of Inuit carvers now use electric power tools to speed up the process, and most, like this man, do not wear a mask, protective glasses, or gloves.

School children try to get close to hunters returning from a seal hunt to the small hamlet of Cape Dorset, Nunavut, Canada on November 10, 2010. Fifty per cent of Nunavut's children do not graduate from high school and with high unemployment many families still rely on the hunts for much of their food.

Two children play with a soccer ball in the snow in Iqaluit, Nunavut on November 12, 2010.

A lack of funding for housing and overcrowding in homes are two of the major issues that Nunavut's government is facing. At the small home of elder Peter Ningeosiak, 73, live eleven family members. Their lives differ dramatically from the lives depicted by media they receive from the south.

While their is a shortage of housing, some houses still sit vacant and in need of repair. This house, in Cape Dorset, Nunavut on November 9, 2010, was the scene of a murder on Sept. 20th. The family refuses to live their again, and other families are resistant to moving in as well. Police evidence markings with the date are still visible on the floor at the entrance to the living room where the murder occurred.

An intoxicated woman is removed from a home after a disturbance on November 6, 2010, in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada. The RCMP detachment in Iqaluit is kept busy every night with domestic calls primarily caused by the abuse of drugs and alcohol.

The Baffin Correctional Centre in the territorial capital of Iqaluit is over crowded and in need of repair. Outside in the fenced courtyard men play dodgeball in the cold air on Nov. 6, 2010.

This man has worked his way up through the system from the juvenile detention centre and now to an isolation cell in the Baffin Correctional Centre. His nickname, "Inuksta," tattooed across his back is his own Inuit play on the word "gangsta."

In keeping with tradition, most Inuit refuse to speak frankly about violent incidents in their communities, and refer to them only in broad terms as "the troubles." But with a renewed sense of urgency a men's group has evolved and is working within communities to hold healing services, like this one in Repulse Bay, Nunavut on November 13, 2010. Following a day of group therapy they held a healing service open to all members of the community where there were prayers, music and tears as men shared their pain openly and made amends with family members, and people came forward to be healed.

A single word "why" is scratched into a wooden cross that marks a shallow grave in the Anglican Cemetery in Cape Dorset, Nunavut. The rates of suicide and violence in Canada's newest territory are far beyond those experienced anywhere else in the country.