Nunavut tourist lodge on Ennadai Lake gets a facelift, goes green

Visitors to the Arctic Haven lodge on Ennadai Lake watch caribou pass by May 5. (PHOTO COURTESY OF ARCTIC HAVEN)

Arctic Haven, the Ennadai Lake-based lodge, changed ownership in 2011 and now attracts some 100 visitors each year. (PHOTO COURTESY OF ARCTIC HAVEN)

Just a few days ago, the first trickle of caribou began migrating along the ice on Ennadai Lake towards their summer calving grounds on the shores of Hudson Bay.

Over the next few weeks, the trickle will grow to a thunderous vibration at times, as an estimated 300,000 caribou trek through the natural corridor.

And Resolute Bay-based businessman Aziz Kheraj thinks he’s got the best spot in the Kivalliq from which to take it all in: the front steps of Arctic Haven, the Kivalliq lodge that he and his wife Aleesuk Idlout purchased in 2011.

The lodge, located about 450 kilometres inland from Arviat, was originally constructed in 2002 and owned by Toronto-based investors as a summer hunting and fishing lodge.

But the lodge never drew large numbers of visitors and sat empty for years after it went up for sale in 2005.

Since the lodge changed hands and become a majority Inuit-owned business, Kheraj and his business partners have done a number of upgrades, including the installation of a massive wind and solar heating system so the lodge can open from spring to fall.

The lodge has now re-launched as an eco-resort. It no longer offers hunting expeditions, but is looking instead to draw more nature enthusiasts and photographers to the centre of the Barrenlands.

“We’d like to get more people interested in the caribou migration, and the abundance of wildlife we have here,” Kheraj said. “One day, we counted 40 species of birds around the lodge.”

“The wildlife is phenomenal.”

With caribou migrating through the region, that means predatory wildlife too: grizzly bears, brown bears and wolves can be spotted from the lodge’s large windows.

So to attract more visitors to the isolated site on Ennadai Lake, Kheraj and his business partners have had to make a land use request to expand the lodge’s infrastructure.

That includes a proposal to take guests out on the land by boat and snowmobile and a request to expand the nearby airstrip, that services the lodge, to allow larger aircraft to land.

The proposal is currently winding its way through the Nunavut Impact Review Board’s regulatory process.

“Like any remote facility, the biggest hurdles are logistics,” Kheraj said. “You’re completely dependent on the weather and everything must be flown in.”

The airport expansion, which he hopes will be complete in May 2016, will allow aircraft such as Dash 8s to land at the lodge.

Until then, Arctic Haven is open for businesses, operated by Richard Weber and Josée Auclair, who also run the Arctic Watch wilderness lodge in Cunningham Inlet near Resolute Bay.

Arctic Haven had its first visitors to Ennadai Lake this month, Kheraj said, with an expected 100 visitors flying in from now until October.

With Arctic Haven now outfitted with two wind turbines and dozens of solar panels, Kheraj said the lodge is “90 per cent green.”

“In the peak daylight, our solar system heats the lodge,” he said. “If everything works well, the generators won’t kick in for two weeks at the time.”

Robert Connelly, manager of community economic development for the Government of Nunavut in Rankin Inlet, says it’s wonderful to see a business convert to renewable energy sources.

“It’s really encouraging to see the approach the current group has taken,” Connelly said. “I think they recognized an opportunity to expand.

“Now the season is significantly expanded, allowing the lodge to attract larger numbers of visitors and a more diverse group too.”

You can see Kheraj’s full proposal for Arctic Haven and related documents here. The NIRB is accepting comments on the project until May 18.