Inuvik time

[Chris Carrier]

As per a request from someone last week, I decided to check my
information concerning the time zoning for Inuvik, NWT Canada.
 
I have distinct memory of Inuvik being in the Mountain zone in
1974, and of a phone call to the airport there around 1979-80
where they said they were on MT but had been on PT but had
changed to MT, and when I asked why they said that the main
reason was that they wanted to be on the same time as Edmonton
for commercial reasons.
 
I would place the phone call was in May, because both the US and
the NWT were on daylight time then and I asked for the time of
sunrise and sunset, and was quoted a time of sunrise and sunset
consonant with MDT (about 3 hours ahead of Inuvik's LMT) and a
length of daylight of about 19 hours (sunrise at 05:?? and sunset
at 00:??).
 
The only written source I have on hand is the Nautical Almanac
standard time charts from the early 60s to the late 80s, a rather
unreliable source because the Almanac is printed >2 years in
advance; for example, the charts have the US on daylight time
during all of the 1974-5 winter when we were not; and the 1987
Almanac, in which the time chart is stated as "corrected to
September 1984" has the UK ending BST on October 11 when in fact
it ended October 25.  (I believe that the UK and the rest of the
EC had a deal to synchronize the end of summer time on the second
Sunday in October in 1984-6, but that this deal fell apart and
the UK continued to use summer time in October and the rest of
the EC didn't.)
 
The 1972 Almanac with its standard time chart "corrected to April
1970" states that Inuvik would have been on PT, being in "Canada,
NWT west of 120" as well as several editions previous.  The 1973
Almanac "corrected to September 1970" has Inuvik on MT as well as
do all future editions, as part of "Canada, NWT west of 102".
 
So "recent" to the two people I talked with at the airport could
have referred to 1970, and the implication from the Almanac would
be that the change from PT to MT would have been on the last
Sunday in April of that year, and that my own recollection of
Inuvik being on PT for a time during the mid-late 70s after being
on MT in 1974 is wrong.
 
I would, however, take Whitman and/or Shanks word on the matter
before I would take the Almanac's due to its lead time problem.
 
Is/was there a newspaper in Inuvik in those years?  Examination
of sunrise/sunset times, especially in February, March, April and
November, would be of interest.
 
Anyhow, those are my own recollections/info...
 
Chris Carrier