(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)

This was quite different from our usual summer holiday destinations.  After picking us up from Iqaluit’s airport, the hotel’s shuttle bus driver refused to believe that we were just there for fun. It seems that everybody from the south who visits Iqaluit is there for business or government reasons.  The few tourists who fly here usually continue onward to more remote Nunavut communities.

But maybe I should back up a little bit. What is Nunavut? It is a massive territory of about 2 million square kilometers occupying the coldest and most remote part of Canada.  If it were a country,  Nunavut would be the 15th largest country in the world.  Despite its massive size, only about 32,000 people live in the entire territory…and, unless you happen to be on a very large cargo ship during the one ice-free month of the year, the only way in is to fly.   You cannot drive to Nunavut.

Even to many Canadians, Nunavut remains a mystery. It doesn’t show up on any old maps because it was part of the Northwest Territories until 1999. Of the 32,000 people, approximately 84% are Inuit. Inuktitut is the language most commonly spoken.  Iqaluit is the capital and largest city, although it has fewer than 7,000 inhabitants.

Our shuttle bus driver was correct:  we didn’t see many other tourists in Nunavut.   It is very expensive to get there:  unless you buy your tickets on the annual “seat sale” day in February (which we did, irrevocably committing to our trip 6 months in advance), it will cost you more to take the 3 hour domestic  flight from Ottawa than it would to fly 8 hours to Europe.   Because almost everything has to be flown in, the costs get worse once you are there.  Would you believe $12 for a 2L soft drink at the grocery store?   In general, prices are double to triple what you would expect to pay in southern Canada.

Despite all that, visiting Iqaluit was a remarkable experience.  20 years ago, it was only a small village.  It has at least doubled in size since then.   Even so, the land around the city is so…endless.   And empty.  It only took a 15-minute walk in any direction to be  utterly alone.   Sylvia Grinnell Territorial Park (just past the airport – see photo at the top of this post) was typical: desolate, beautiful, and vast in every sense of the word.

We gained a profound appreciation for the power of nature: we came across lots of animal skeletons during our walks.   With temperatures plummeting to near 0’C on summer nights, heat was rarely a problem.

Rather than craving heat, however, we found ourselves craving wind.  When the winds blow, which is often, the insect threat is neutralized.  However, when the wind lets up and the sun shines, the voracious mosquitoes and blackflies become oppressive.  Not only were these insects huge and hungry, they roamed in massive packs and were only mildly deterred by industrial strength insect repellent.  We went through an entire bottle of “Deep Woods Off!” in a single two hour walk along the coast.

We really enjoyed our walks to the Territorial Park and the “suburb” of Apex (about 5 km from Iqaluit).   While there weren’t a lot of touristy things to do in Iqaluit, visiting Nunavut is more about experiencing the land than about seeing urban sights.  Although we did visit the craft stores and the museum, we found everyday tasks such as buying stamps and grocery shopping to be just as interesting.

Even though they are in the same country, the differences between Kingston and Iqaluit are far greater than the differences between Kingston and a similarly-sized town in, for example, Sweden.  Great travel can really make you think – here, we found ourselves asking what being “Canadian” really means.

If you ever get the chance to go to Nunavut, I highly recommend taking advantage of the opportunity.  Even better would be to also visit a community outside of Iqaluit, to see what a more traditional Inuit community is like.   We’d like to see Pangnirtung someday:  apparently, its setting in the mountains and on Pangnirtung Fjord is spectacular.   However, even if you only visit Iqaluit, a trip to Nunavut will still leave a vivid impression on you.  And you can even get a decent shawarma while you’re there:  you’ll find a Lebanese take-out place just outside the airport.