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The government is the major employer. The place only started around 70 years ago with a military airbase, and that brought people in from the outlying communities. The airbase survived the end of WWII and the permanent community grew up to support it. The reason that it has doubled in size in the last 10 years is because Nunavut was formed as a new territory (split from the North West Territories) and Iqaluit was named capital. They needed to build an entire infrastructure for that.

There is a lot of construction going on now, although that's largely people from down south other than labourers and there are some local businesses - the airlines, a few stores, services (heating, electrical, etc) and of course hotels. There is also a relatively new mining and exploration industry which could become big depending on what is found.

Many of the older locals make money through their art, but younger people are starting to get opportunities to go to college (local) or university (down south) so that they can take over some of the professional roles currently filled by outsiders. I have 8 people on my courses and unfortunately only one is local.

this is certainly an interesting read

Roff, you said there is -20 degrees outside. Have you ever tried throwing a hot glass of water in the cold air? The water is supposed to freeze "explosively". And for some strange reason it "explodes" more when it is warmer, as opposed to colder which is strange.

If you havent done this before, maybe you could do a little "sience experiment" and post the results? Im curious to know if its really true....

Also would love to visit sometime and try it out for myself...... and all the other sites ofcourse

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Navitimer, Steelfish, Colt GMT, Aerospace, Chronospace, Chrono Superocean

Yeah I've heard that too, but it won't freeze that quick at -20, in January it will be down to about -40 (same in fahrenheit) and that might be cold enough. All I would do is annoy people by creating a sheet of ice on the ground!

Well if I haven't managed to bore you yet, let me try again

This shot looks like the sun is about to rise. In fact this was about 9:30am, still around 45 minutes or so before the sun comes up - it's just so slow up here as it stays so low at this time of year. I never did see the sun today because it clouded over completely.



I then thought that you might like to see how Iqaluit does 'normal' things. Here's a stop sign - in English and in syllabics - the written form of Inuktitut.



And here is the gas station! To be fair there is another one that has two pumps, but this one is more fun



As I mentioned, there is no road access to here, so Iqaluit is also separated from other parts of modern infrastructure. As a result, here is the communications hub - it's about 25 feet across. The angle is so low because of the northern latitudes.



And finally for now, here is the downtown core.



Back to work tomorrow so you'll have a bit of a break

Love the sign at the gas station - anyone really camp there? Those who do should be given a medal.

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Collection: http://s540.photobucket.com/albums/gg32 ... mview=grid

Oh yeah, usually in the summer though. Because there are so few communities camping is the only option out of town.

The museum has photos from the 1950s when the permanent community was being built and they lived in tents while they were building. The tents are pretty thick and they have some pretty serious sleeping bags though!

Thanks for posting this, Roff, I'm finding it fascinating. I'm probably not the only one who's gone straight to Google Maps to see just where Iqaluit is... Wow, you're a long way north!

Where I am it was over 41 degrees C yesterday, so it's a bit strange just looking at pictures of snow. I particularly like the shot of the frozen bay.

I too have found it all very fascinating Roff. Iqaluit really does appear to be in the middle of nowhere.

It's truly amazing the places some people live and activities that bring them there.

Thanks for posting, I've thoroughly enjoyed learning something new!

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Happines is Good Health and a Bad Memory.
"Ingrid Bergman"

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Omega21

I figured it was mainly during the 3 months of warmer climate, but when I looked at the precipitation curve their tents should be very waterproof... Still earning a medal, I think.

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Collection: http://s540.photobucket.com/albums/gg32 ... mview=grid

Precipitation is actually not much here - although they do expect snow for 11 of the 12 months. Technically this is classed as a desert because of the low precipitation totals (snow is melted down to the liquid equivalent when measuring and it's roughly a foot of snow to an inch of rain).

Crikey it looks cold..... I spent some time on business in Fort Nelson B.C a few years ago. Great experience and a beautiful place....! Especially as I decided to drive up from Calgary via Edmonton to see more of the country. I only got to as far as fort Nelson along the Alaska Highway, a journey I would love to complete someday!

Enjoy your trip.......!

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STAFFWOLF - NAVITIMER

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4090

Really interesting stuff Roff.

(And it looks like your new camera has done wonders for your photography! )

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Driver8

Site Moderator

interesting place, thanks for posting thepics.

typically you want to overexpose snow scenes, your cameras meter gets confused in this situation and tries to set the white to grey thus under exposing. To me it looks like you're camera did a pretty good job of capturing. I'm not familiar with that camera specifically, but there mught be a specific snow or at least a manual setting that would let you underexpose some.

http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digita ... ual_01.pdf looks like there is a simple button that is accessed without going to any menus no matter what program mode you are shooting in. You can adjust the exposure compensation right from the back of the camera.


Just read up a little more...cool camera...there is a dedicated snow scene setting. It's accessed through the scenes menu set sp on the dial and then hit menu/ok and then choose scene positions then scroll to the appropriate scene.

Yeah found that today

I wasn't going out after work today because it was blowing and snowing, but will see what I can do tomorrow - even though it will be dark when I am done with work. I have Thursday morning to explore further before I have to go to the airport (which I could walk to if I wanted to) so will try and take some pics with this setting then.

I have to say that I am pretty impressed with this camera - I really haven't been trying to pose much because of the weather and while it's obviously easier with 'snaps' rather than macro watch shots, but it does make me look slightly less awful as a photographer.

I hadn't previously posted this shot as it's not particularly interesting, but I had taken a photo of the building and wanted the details of what the building was so this shot was at full zoom (10x) taken across the street and my hands were very cold so just aim and shoot. I would say that the camera did a pretty good job - I'm not taking any credit.