Canada's Arctic Capital — the Inuit city at the top of Frobisher Bay where the midnight sun lasts two months, the sea ice is a highway, and Inuit art and language are the centre of civic life
Iqaluit is the capital of Nunavut — Canada's newest and largest territory, established in 1999 as a political homeland for the Inuit people. Located on Baffin Island above the Arctic Circle, Iqaluit (meaning 'place of many fish' in Inuktitut) is the most northerly capital city in North America. It is a city of contradictions: government offices and hotels stand beside skin-tent camping traditions and dog teams; hunters still go out onto the sea ice on snowmobiles to harpoon ringed seals; and the city's Inuit art scene — printmaking, stone carving, and textile art — is internationally recognis…
Iqaluit's location at the head of Frobisher Bay was used by Dorset Culture Inuit peoples for thousands of years before Martin Frobisher arrived in 1576 seeking the Northwest Passage, naming the bay after himself. Significant modern settlement began in 1942–43 when the US Army Air Forces built an air base on the site (Crystal Two), using it as a refuelling stop for aircraft being ferried to Europe via Greenland. The base was transferred to Canada as Frobisher Bay after WWII and became an administrative post for the Eastern Arctic — the Canadian government forcibly relocated Inuit families from…