July 4, 2024 – Ottawa to Iqaluit, Nunavut

Flew from Ottawa to Iqaluit on Canadian North airline. Took three hours of flying almost due north.

Iqaluit is the capital of the Canadian territory of Nunavut. It’s a huge territory with its northernmost islands the farthest north in the world.

Iqaluit is kinda in the south of Nunavut just below the Arctic Circle. Iqaluit has about 8,000 people and the territory only has 40,000.

Bought a few things at the Northmart, a grocery, apparel, home furnishings and sporting goods store all in one shop.

Everything is at holy crap prices because everything has to be brought in by plane or cargo ship. There are no roads to Iqaluit.

This area is the home of the Inuit people, or as we used to call them, Eskimo.

There are no trees here. This is tundra and rock. Polar bears are around but they’ve moved north now to follow the sea ice where their favorite meal, seals, live.

All buildings are built on pylons, raised off the ground. If they were built on the ground the structure would melt the underlying permafrost and the building would sink into the ground. In the winter the ground would freeze and heave the building up. That’s not good for the building. There are some large buildings like apartment buildings and a hotel not on pylons. I guess they’re just too large and heavy to be supported by pylons.

Ate a hearty meal at the Storehouse Bar & Grill. On the walls were skins of a wolf, polar bear and caribou with a chandelier made of caribou antlers.

Tomorrow a visit to the Visitor’s Center is first chore to get some excursions lined up.

This isn’t the farthest north I’ve been. I’ve been to Longyearben, Svalbard and Barrow, Alaska. Tell me the farthest north you’ve been.

Cheers