It was a pitch-black, mid-winter evening in Cape Dorset when a knock came at my hotel-room door. Outside stood a young Inuit man in a voluminous parka. “Wanna buy a carving?” he asked quietly, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a soapstone kayak complete with a miniature hunter holding an ivory harpoon. I handed over the $80 he asked for and got a shy toothless smile before he vanished into the Arctic night.
Before I landed on Iqaluit’s icy runway when I first went north in 1990, I had already lost my heart to this stark landscape. From 2,000 m up, icebergs littered an inky Arctic Ocean and the tundra was polka-dotted with pothole lakes shimmering in blues from turquoise to indigo. And once I’d spent time with the Inuit, I was smitten by their unpretentiousness, sense of humour and generosity with the shank of caribou that squats on every home’s kitchen counter.
Now you, too, can lose your heart in Nunavut. There’s a new and cushy way to explore the High Arctic villages and untamed wilderness in comfort onboard one of the vessels of Cruise North Expeditions, an Inuit-owned company that also supplies local guides. Without having to rough it in a wind-beaten tent, you’ll take in the Northern Lights, paddle near Nunavut’s newest park, Sirmilik, maybe make an Inuit friend or two.
Nunavut—“our land” in Inuktitut—was born on April 1, 1999. It was the first time since 1949 (when Newfoundland joined the Canadian Confederation) that map-makers had been sent back to the drawing board to change the boundaries of our country. Nunavut covers one-fifth of Canada’s land area, 2 million sq km—a vast area where lives are often still lived according to timetables thousands of years old.
Iqaluit, population 7,250, has been booming since it became Nunavut’s capital. By far the biggest community, it is a dusty frontier town with the territory’s only hospital, law courts, banks, jail, licensed restaurants and movie theatre. The 28 “settlements” scattered throughout the territory are accessible only by boat, plane, snowmobile or dogsled. Outnumbered nearly 30 to 1 by caribou, Nunavut’s total population of 30,000 could easily fit into an average-sized sports stadium, a statistically solitary .01 people per square kilometre.
Just walking around Iqaluit is a cultural experience. In summer, carvers work soapstone outside and in winter, women still dress in traditional amoutiq jackets with babies tucked into the gaping hoods. When I visited two summers ago, everyone was free to attend service at the igloo-shaped Anglican church, which featured an altar cross made of two narwhal tusks. Hymns were sung in Inuktitut.
Most of Nunavut's far-flung settlements are no bigger than a couple hundred people. Life here is quieter and more traditional than in Iqaluit. Nearly all of these folks hunt and fish to supplement their food supply, and it’s common for entire families to head out “on the land” to camp for the summer. But even here, pick-up trucks, snowmobiles, ATVs and outboards have replaced dogsleds and kayaks.
I rarely linger in the settlements. For me, they are jumping-off points for the wilderness, Nunavut’s main attraction. The territory has three national parks and several territorial parks, but even in the hamlets, the wilderness is never far away. One summer, I spent a week poking along the coast near Pond Inlet, paddling around icebergs drifting through Lancaster Sound, listening to the dripping of water echoing in wave-sculpted caves. I remember setting off hiking through Ellesmere National Park—700 km from the North Pole—in July through knee-deep wildflowers with butterflies fluttering all around.
Then there was the nest of baby snowy owls I came across in the Belcher Islands, and the mid-winter night in Hall Beach when the Northern Lights shimmered red and green with such brilliance, I swore I could hear them crackle.
And I’ll never forget a young Inuit girl I met in Resolute who pointed three inches above the top of the TV screen that was broadcasting the weather report. “I live up here,” she proudly told me, “on a part of the map you can’t see.” www.NunavutTourism.com www.cruisenorthexpeditions.com www.arctictravel.com
Exploring Iqaluit

• The waterfront Unikkaarvik Visitors Centre shares a building with the town library, a good source of polar books. The centre has maps and knowledgeable staff who can plan anything from a walking tour of Iqaluit to a North Pole expedition.
• Nearby, the Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum is housed in a renovated Hudson’s Bay Company trading-post building. It has an excellent collection of artifacts, including a sealskin kayak and displays of Inuit artwork from various communities.
• You can purchase Inuit art from throughout the north—including carvings from internationally renowned Cape Dorset and prints and tapestries from Pangnirtung—at galleries and shops around town.