The top 10 Nunatsiaq News Facebook photos of 2015

This is how we vote in Canada: Cambridge Bay elders pose in front of this western Nunavut town’s polling station after voting in the Oct. 19 federal election. This photo was circulated on Twitter hundreds of times to tens of thousands of people around the world, making this the top Nunatsiaq News photo of 2015 on Twitter, where Nunatsiaq News posts photos every day. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

The academic achievement of a Nunavik student and teacher — that was the top photo on the Nunatsiaq News Facebook page in 2015, according to a total combination of views, likes, shares and comments.

Dinah Fleming-Napartuk is all smiles after receiving her bachelor of education degree for certified teachers from McGill University Nov. 10. Fleming-Napartuk, a veteran teacher at Asimauttaq school in Kuujjuaraapik, is the first teacher in that Nunavik community to receive a bachelor’s degree. (PHOTO BY KAUDJAK PADLAYAT, KSB)

Also vying for most popular Nunatsiaq News photo on Facebook:

Two armed RCMP officers in full camo-gear walk through Happy Valley in Iqaluit shortly before 5 p.m. April 29. The armed standoff in this locked-down Iqaluit neighbourhood lasted more than two days. (PHOTO BY THOMAS ROHNER)

The other top photos of 2016:

An explosion of colour over Kuujjuaq: Here, Quebec photographer Gilles Boutin captures an explosion of pink and green over Nuvvut Bay in Kuujjuaq March 28. (PHOTO BY GILLES BOUTIN)

Lawrence Apak Uttak, eight, on the right and his brother, Gavin Uttak, four, work to finish building an igloo Jan. 31 just outside their hometown of Igloolik. Their father, Levy Uttak, taught them how to cut the snow blocks. “Every time I get a chance, I try to teach my boys survival skills,” Uttak said. (PHOTO BY LEVY UTTAK)

Growing spuds north of the Arctic Circle: Helen Whittaker of Kugluktuk with a wheelbarrow full of potatoes that she and her husband, Larry Whittaker, harvested from their garden Sept. 12. (PHOTO BY LARRY WHITTAKER)

Volunteers with the Tukisigiarvik Centre pose April 7 in Iqaluit wearing traditional sealskin and caribou clothing in front of an igloo built to mark the 50th anniversary of Toonik Tyme. Tukisigiarvik, along with the City of Iqaluit and the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, sponsored the re-creation of an igloo village to mark the event. (PHOTO BY THOMAS ROHNER)

Arctic sunset: A walk back to work after lunch hour in Iqaluit reveals this view of the sun on the horizon, just before the sunset at about 2:30 p.m. on this November day in Iqaluit. (PHOTO BY STEVE DUCHARME)

At a podium in Iqaluit’s scenic Rotary Park, Liberal party leader Justin Trudeau — now Prime Minister, with his wife Sophie Grégoire, to the left, and Nunavut Liberal candidate Hunter Tootoo — now Nunavut MP, repeats the Liberals’ commitment to expand Nutrition North Canada. “We need a voice for Nunavut in Ottawa, not the voice of Ottawa in Nunavut,” said Trudeau. (PHOTO BY STEVE DUCHARME)

Iqaluit elder Inuapik Sagiaktok, Liberal party leader Justin Trudeau, and his 18-month-old son, Hadrien, at the qulliq Oct. 10 at a community feast in Iqaluit hosted by the Liberal party during Trudeau’s visit to the Nunavut capital. (PHOTO BY STEVE DUCHARME)

The world’s largest falcon, the gyrfalcon breeds in the Arctic regions in summer and then returns to southern Canada and parts of the American northwest for the winter. Female gyrfalcons have been known to cache food for their young — such as the young group here photographed by Cambridge Bay photographer Derrick Anderson outside that community in August. (PHOTO BY RED SUN PRODUCTIONS)

Oct. 4 was a bad Sunday for Netsilik Ilihakvik and the AHS Natsiaq Pre-School in Taloyoak: “After a very good week of fun activities and events it was a very rude awakening to wake up to this.Gremlins were very busy during the middle of the night. $1000’s of dollars worth of school supplies torn apart, strewn about and trashed,” said a posting Oct. 4. on the school’s Facebook page. “It is very disheartening to see major dollars spent on upgrades done on places like the school, preschool, complex, hamlet etc. only to be faced with terrible vandalism like this done in the middle of the night.” (PHOTO COURTESY OF NETSILIK SCHOOL/FACEBOOK)

A late-year photo becomes one of the most popular photos of 2015: Here, volunteers put the finishing touches on 280 Christmas hampers, which were distributed to families in Igloolik Dec. 21.The Igloolik Co-op partnered with the group Friends of the North, community organizations and Canadian North to pack and deliver the hampers full of food and toys for those in the community who are in need. The Christmastime hamper delivery builds on a program the Igloolik Co-op launched earlier this year, when staff began packaging food baskets for southern sponsors to donate to local families. (PHOTO COURTESY OF DANA SHEAVES)