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I hope that this isn't too boring for everyone, but I am currently in the middle of a business trip to Iqaluit, the capital of the Canadian territory of Nunavut. Nunavut takes up about 20% of Canada's geographic area but has only 25 communities. Iqaluit is the largest with a population of around 7,000 and growing rapidly.

It's a very tough life up here - the ice retreats from the bay only for around 10 weeks of the year (mid July until early October) and that's when all of the big items have to be shipped in. Other than that everything has to be flown in as there is no road access up here. Also, because of the climate there is no farming and very little grows. The only commonly available local food is Arctic Char and Caribou.

I had the day off today so decided to go out and explore - it was a fairly nice day, no wind, but cold at -20c / -4f. The sun comes up at around 10:15am at this time of year and sets around 2:30pm - the sun photo that I have here was taken at about 12:45pm.

This is also the first time to use my new Fuji FinePix F70EXR - I'm very pleased, especially considering that these were truly point and shoot shots - I had to take my gloves off to pull the camera out and take the shot, and you don't want to have bare skin exposed for too long!!

I have one question for the photo experts.....

The light up here is very weak - it makes everything look washed out, and of course there is a lot of white / grey in the environment. How should I be setting the camera up to make the most of the contrast???

Hope that these aren't too boring, it's just a really cool place (literally and figuratively).



This is a wideshot of most of the town - a few residential streets didn't make it in. I actually climbed the hill to take a photo of the famous 'Road to Nowhere' (that's what the road is called, but it didn't have a signpost This shot was taken before the sun came up for the day - there are a couple of hours of this greyish sort of light.



Then I went into the town itself and down to Frobisher Bay. I don't think that I am standing on the bay for these shots, but I could be. This is the shoreline



and this is across the bay



Further down the shore this was the view of the sun



Finally, this is the first ever full size Inuit sculpture, it's a drummer and is now in the Visitor Centre.



I have a load more and am planning to go out again tomorrow, but don't want to bore everyone if I am the only person who finds this interesting!

Does your camera have a manual white balance setting? If so, try adjusting it. The auto white balance usually has a hard time with scenes like that.

Not truly manual, but it has different settings and I left it on auto for these for the camera to select, however there is another mode to measure white balance so I'll try that tomorrow.

Thanks for the advice!

No. Very interesiing indeed Roff. In fact, when you posted earlier this week concerning your trials and travail of the luggage I was hoping that you had your camera and you would post some shots of the place. Looks like a nice place to visit but wow! I cannot imagine living there. Gimme the sunshine. I for one would love to see some more shots if you get the chance. Love your narrative as well. Very informative.

Classically, you want to use that with a 18% grey card. If you poke around online, people have tricks for making these with photocopier!

Plenty of sunshine br549 - just come up in June, then you'll get about 20 hours of it!

This is the Inushuk outside of the Nunavut Legislative Assembly (parliament). Technically this is an Inunnguaq, an Inukshuk in the shampe of a person, but they are genrally referred to as inuskshuk by most people. These are famous as symbols of the Inuit people and were orignally used as markers, navigation aids, etc in a landscape devoid of any natural markers (no trees up here). Today they are largely decorative and miniatures are common tourist gifts.



Oh and dhalem - thanks for the tip, but I think that will have to wait until I get back south. There may be a photocopier up here, but I would be surprised

I actually would like to experience that someday. That and the Aurora Borealis are two things that I need to add to my "bucket list". Very cool pics and great info Roff. Thanks for posting.

Not at all! Actually, I find this quite interesting, so please keep it up.
Keep the pics coming as well.

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There must be snow-option on scene-positions to choose shooting mode, at least my pocket cam F30 has, so you may want to try that. But snow is tricky, sometimes it's easier to adjust pics on computer in warm place than playing with camera in cold.

This is a great post Roff! I'm sure not too many of the members here have been somewhere like this (no offence meant) and I find it very interesting!

Cheers

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Ditto

This is a very interesting post Roff - thanks for taking the time to post it. With it having snowed just twice in Johannesburg in the last thirty odd years I have zero input as far as your white balance question is concerned

Please keep the pics coming.

Peter

Really interesting stuff Roff. Keep those pictures coming I say!

Looks like a truly fascinating place, but what on earth possesses people to live there! There's got to be easier places to live, but then if solitude, scenery and zero evidence of the rat-race are what you seek, then there can be few places better.

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Well one of the downsides up here is no internet for the last 24 hours.......

This post from Driver8 inspires me to be sincere for a moment so please forgive me...

Before I came up here I was joking with all the people in the office about eating blubber and building an igloo, etc. But, now that I am here I find it very difficult to mock the people who live here.

The native Inuit population live here because they always have and they are fiercely proud of their heritage. The people from 'down south' come up here because they have a genuine desire to do good. Yes money is better up here, but I am teaching project management to people who earn around $80,000 and about $14,000 allowance for living up here. That's not huge, especially when you thing that 4 litres / 1 gallon of milk is $15, gas is about 50 cents a litre more than elsewhere in Canada and an average weekly shop can easily run you $300. Rent on a 2 bedroom apartment is around $2,600 a month and internet access will cost you $100 for 512k.

The native population up here has a lot of problems - poverty, alcohol, drugs, and health - rickets is a big problem up here because of the lack of a blanced diet. There is a real concerted effort to try and help the people become more self supportive, and to govern themselves effectively. There is also a lot of investment to try and use technology to help deal with the issues of remote locations - telehealth, medical consultations by video, etc.

The southerners are generally young because those are the people that come up here - it's not the place to bring a young family. There are some things that are a challenge, but I have huge admiration for these people - native and non native.

The Inuit also show a tremendous amount of progressive thought - they respect their elders and their women and the contribution that they can make - the Premier, MP and Mayor are all women, and the MP is the federal health minister.

OK, enough of the serious. Here are a few more pictures - weather wasn't great today so didn't get out quite so much, and honestly there wasn't much that I hadn't seen yesterday.

I tried messing with the camera settings, but honestly it was so damn cold today that I just wanted to 'capture and run'.

These two are from different campuses of Arctic college. The first is a sculpture made up of old rusty pipe connectors, the second is a line of Inukshuks.





This next one is incredible. It's from a community called Igloolik, with about 1,700 people. There are a lot of carvers there, all trained by the elders (no formal training). This is a walrus skull



Finally for today, this building is a combination of offices, my hotel, a movie theatre, restaurant, pub and (believe it or not) swimming pool. The locals are very proud of it because it is the first building of it's kind in Iqaluit. It stands out because it is different, I just find myself being slightly disappointed that such a small town already has a mini 'skyscraper'.

All I can say is...

looks very cold...

But what can I say... living in LA spoils people... nevertheless, don't personally get to do too much travelling... the place looks beautiful~! wouldn't mind getting away from the city life for a tad bit... safe travels professor~!

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Very nice Roff. I like the travel guide. Very interesting, I can imagine it would be a challenge to move there. I got curious so I had to look up the place to see what people actually do there for a living. I found that the Military still have some people there and that airplanes are tested there for cold climate. What else do people do there Roff? Are there any more major employers up there?

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