Health delegation forced into three-day odyssey

Three days, with 20 hours spent in the air. That's how long it took a Greenland government delegation to travel from Nuuk to Kuujjuaq and Iqaluit this past weekend.

The 10-member delegation, headed by Health Minister Aqqalu Abelsen, flew to Copenhagen via Kangerlussuaq Friday, May 16.

The next day, they headed back across the Atlantic to Montreal. On Sunday the Greenlanders travelled north to Kuujjuaq – a journey of more than 11,000 kilometres.

It's an expensive and tiring three-day trek.

But the Kalaallit had no choice if they want to visit health care facilities in Nunavik and Nunavut, said Augusta Marie Jerimiassen, the health minister's secretary.

"It is impossible to fly direct and the charter is very expensive," Jermiassen said in an interview from Nuuk.

It's a slightly shorter and slightly less expensive journey from Greenland to Canada via Icelandair, which recently restarted service between Keflavik, Iceland and either Toronto or Halifax.

However, traveling through Iceland can also take as long as the trip through Denmark due to waiting time between flights.

Two years from now, Air Greenland plans to start its own bi-weekly air connections from Kangerlussuaq to Keflavik to connect to flights to North America.

But this still doesn't solve the lack of a direct air link between Canada and Greenland, where only 824 km separates Iqaluit and Nuuk.

Kenn Harper, the honorary consul for Denmark in Iqaluit, recently appeared on Icelandic television, where he urged Icelandair to expand its existing service to take in Iqaluit.

A group of Nordic journalists who visited Iqaluit last month included Kristjan Mar Unnarson, an Icelandic television reporter.

Harper said Unnarson was shocked when he learned there is no air connection between Nunavut and Greenland.

"I still want there to be a route from Iqaluit to Nuuk. I think it's shocking and shameful that there isn't," Harper said.

First Air ended its weekly jet service from Iqaluit to Kangerlussuaq in October 2001, and Air Greenland pulled the plug on its flights from Kangerlussuaq to Baltimore, Maryland earlier this year, after announcing losses of more than $3 million during the route's first year.

For the moment, charters are still the only way to fly from Canada to Greenland direct. That forces Procon Mining, a Canadian company contracted for work at the Nalunaq gold mine in Greenland, to charter aircraft to transport staff from St. John's and Goose Bay to southern Greenland.

Quadra Mining, another B.C. mining company, is also likely to experience air transportation problems as it develops the Malmbjerg deposit located in eastern Greenland. The mine, which will produce molybdenum, used to strengthen steel, is due to start production in 2010.