Photo: Space station astronaut makes Iqaluit pit stop

The next Canadian astronaut assigned to the International Space Station, David Saint-Jacques, takes time out of his hectic training regime at NASA headquarters in Houston to speak with Inuksuk High School students in Iqaluit Oct. 17. Saint-Jacques, who practiced family medicine in Puvirnituq for two years, says his time in the North prepared him for the difficulties of space flight. “When you live in a far away region, with few resources, you have to be smart,” Saint-Jacques said about the lessons learned from northern life and Inuit. “You have to be resourceful… I learned the value of creative teamwork.” Saint-Jacques came with a massive satellite map of Canada which sprawled across much of the floor in the high school gymnasium. That map—courtesy of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society—will make its own tour across the North as a teaching tool for Nunavut schools over the next few years. Saint-Jacques will head into space aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket in November 2018 and will spend six months aboard the ISS conducting scientific and technological research. (PHOTO BY STEVE DUCHARME)