Wrestling blood lust, dope busts and much more

January

• For the fourth straight year, Iqaluit Council votes to delay passage of the city's annual budget. Chief administrative officer John Hussey tells councillors the delay is due to uncertainty over the details of a capital funding agreement with the Government of Nunavut.

• After 10 months of wrangling, Iqaluit city council passes a bylaw granting the mayor a $30,000 pay raise and full-time status. Supporters, including Mayor Elisapee Sheutiapik and Coun. Glenn Williams, argued the move would help boost the number of candidates for mayor.

• Muscular men and absurdly well-proportioned women descend on Iqaluit when the Blood, Sweat and Ears wrestling circuit hits town for two well attended shows. Good guy Brian Youngblood arrives to the event by snowmobile and beats the living daylights out of his opponent.

February

• Students at Inuksuk High School stage "An Emotional Rollercoaster." The hour-long production of the school's drama department is a series of monologues and one-actor plays that deal with the dark side of Iqaluit: drugs, substance abuse, and violence.

• Iqaluit city council raises residential property taxes by $1.82 per $1,000 of assessed value. The tax hike creates a $250,000 nest egg that the city plans to stash away to fund the construction of a new city hall and recreation centre. The budget also includes an $84,000 operating surplus.

• The city moves another step closer to a long-awaited replacement for the Lower Iqaluit cemetery. Council approves a site located about one kilometre out of town on the Road To Nowhere, offers mourners a spot near the Apex Creek. The city will spend $60,000 to design the new cemetery. Building the first phase will cost $150,000.

March

• RCMP in Iqaluit seize 1.8 kilograms of crack cocaine and $8,300 in cash after a March 8 raid in the capital. The drugs amount to 1,900 individual hits of crack worth roughly $385,000 on the street, Mounties say in a press release. Darrean Wesley Hall and Jacob Allen Friskie, both of Edmonton, are each later charged with two counts of drug trafficking.

• Two Iqaluit residents circulate a petition calling on the Government of Nunavut to bar all-terrain vehicles from a planned bridge spanning the Sylvia Grinnell River. John Maurice and Rhoda Ungalaq fear ATVs will tear up the land, increase littering and scare away animals. But Environment Minister Olayuk Akesuk says most Iqalummiut support the project and pledges it will go ahead as planned.

• More than 400 residents of Iqaluit turn out for the Celebration of the Seal event at the Arctic Winter Games arena March 15. People eat fresh seal meat, listen to children sing songs about the seal and watch models showcase the latest in sealskin clothing. The event coincides with a day of protest against the seal hunt by southern animal rights activists.

April

• A 35-year-old Iqaluit man is arrested and charged with producing and distributing child pornography after Iqaluit RCMP searched his home and seized computers and video equipment containing images of minors engaged in sex acts. Nathan Lee Evans is also charged with five counts of sexual assault, two counts of forcible confinement and three charges of sexual interference with three girls who were under the age of 14 when the offences are alleged to have occurred.

• City council considers doubling and tripling fees the city charges the taxi industry. The suggestion came from chief bylaw officer Rod Mugford, who was directed during January's budget deliberations to review the taxi fee structure. A representative of the taxi industry, Pai-pa's Craig Dunphy, calls the plan "utterly ridiculous" and vows to fight it.

• Parents are still waiting for a public meeting on the future of Inuksuk High School. The education department had planned a meeting on the school, which is to be renovated at a cost of $20 million, since December, but scheduling conflicts kept delaying the meeting.

May

• The Iqaluit Humane Society puts out a call for donations and volunteers for its newly-opened animal shelter located off Federal Road. The shelter, located in the same building as a newer, improved city dog pound, provides space for more stray animals and allows sick animals to be isolated from healthy ones.

• After 28 years of grease, beer and at least one sexual encounter in a bathroom, the landmark Kamotiq Inn closes its doors. The restaurant, purchased by Edmonton developer Mike Mrdjenovich, is to be bulldozed and replaced with a four-storey office building.

• City officials announce a deal that will see federal, territorial and municipal money go to a massive paving project that will eventually see 20 of Iqaluit's 28 kilometres of roads covered with asphalt over two years.
• Iqaluit city council mulls a permanent fix to the foundering Arctic Winter Games arena, which is sinking into the tundra and unusable for hockey. Consulting firm Trow Associates presents a council committee with a list of options for fixing the rink that range in price from a few hundred thousand to millions of dollars.

June

• Iqaluit councillor Glenn Williams makes the latest plea by the city for a deepwater port in the capital, this time to the Senate's fisheries and oceans committee during hearings at the Frobisher Inn. Business leaders back Williams, but Patterk Netser, then the minister of economic development and transportation, has to be repeatedly asked by senators before he says the Government of Nunavut would welcome a port in Iqaluit.

• The GN's education department announces it has abandoned plans to house students in portables during a planned $20-million renovation of Inuksuk High School. The portable scheme is abandoned after the education officials realize the portables would cost $15 million.

• Thieves break into a brand new circus tent that's home to the Alianait! arts festival, break marionette puppets and a stage backdrop, and make off with sound and lighting equipment. Festival organizers are thrown into a panic, but the backdrop is repaired and police recover the stolen equipment before showtime. The opening event is sold out, and the festival goes on to set another record for attendance.

July

• Iqaluit council overturns a decision to close the outer stretch of the Road to Nowhere to vehicles. Fire officials had requested the closing after someone left fires made burning construction materials unattended, forcing firefighters to make risky treks on the sometimes treacherous road. But the move annoys dog walkers, berry pickers and hikers.

• Canada Post promises to investigate after an Iqaluit resident complains that letters take too long to reach Nunavut from the south. In a letter to then-MP Nancy Karetak-Lindell, Iqaluit resident Cameron McGregor says one letter mailed in Toronto took three weeks to reach Iqaluit.

• Iqaluit's inventory of rusty old cars starts disappearing. A Quebec company that signed a deal with city hall and the Government of Nunavut begins crushing old cars, appliances and other waste metal at the Iqaluit landfill.

• South Baffin swelters under record high heat during a week long stretch of temperatures above 20 C. On July 21 the mercury soars to 26.8 C, the highest temperature ever recording in Iqaluit since measurements began in 1946. Iqalummiut flock to ice cream stands and the Apex Creek to cool off.

August

• The preliminary hearing of a man accused of killing an RCMP officer in Kimmirut gets underway amid tight security in Iqaluit. Pingoatok "Ping" Kolola is charged with the shooting death of Cst. Douglas Scott in Nov. 2007. Later, Kolola's trial is set for Nov. 2009.

• RCMP in Iqaluit issue a public warning after a repeat sex offender who completed his sentence moves to the capital. Roonie Iqalukjuak, 33, served nearly four years in an Ontario prison for a series of crimes, including sexual assault. Police say they took the unusual step because Iqalukjuak poses "a serious risk to the safety of the public."

• City councillor Jim Little urges staff to reconsider a plan to build Iqaluit's new cemetery on a plot near the Apex River, just off the Road To Nowhere. Little describes the Apex River as a potential future source of potable water for the city and worries that embalming chemicals could leach from cemetery plots and contaminate the creek.

September

• Iqaluit Mayor Elisapee Sheutiapik announces she'll take on Premier Paul Okalik in the riding of Iqaluit West in October's territorial election. Sheutiapik announces her plans to take a leave of absence for the campaign during a Sept. 9 council meeting.

• RCMP in the capital issue another warning, this time urging women to avoid walking alone at night, after a woman is sexually assaulted behind Inuksuk High School. A witness chases off the attacker, who is dressed all in black.

• Construction gets underway on the Kamotiq Centre, a four-storey, 3,000-square metre office-retail complex located at the Four Corners intersection. Built by Nova Group, the complex will contain office space, with room for a retail operation on the ground floor.

October

• The Iqaluit Junior Hockey League starts its inaugural season. The league, for players aged 15 to 21, is made up of three teams and focuses on the advanced coaching and intense conditioning players need if they want to play elite junior hockey for southern teams.

• Residents in the capital take to the streets to protest violence against women. The annual Take Back The Night march takes on added significance after a pair of unsolved sexual assaults and another incident where a woman was hooted at by a man dressed in black. Shylah Elliot, executive director of Qulliit Nunavut Status of Women Council hoped the event would help "take back places in town where women should be able to walk at night."

• Families fear letting their children out by themselves after a string of sexual assaults, say residents who turn out to a special meeting of Iqaluit City Council to discuss public safety issues. Council calls the meeting after an open letter circulates, accusing councillors of inaction.

November

• The Baffin Regional Agvvik Society and the YWCA announce plans for shelter to house homeless women in Iqaluit. The organizations were working on the purchase of a building for the long-awaited facility, to be known as Sivummut House. The groups eyed a February opening date for the shelter.

• The Canadian Mixed Curling Championships take place at the Arnaitok Arena in Iqaluit. The event, featuring nearly 50 elite curlers from all ten provinces and the Northwest Territories, is Nunavut's first national sports championship. Decent attendance and a series of curling workshops held across the street at the Iqaluit Curling Club have organizers calling the event a success.

• An Iqaluit couple complains to city council after running up nearly $500 in impound fees because their dog Ruff is repeatedly picked up by city bylaw officers. Randy and Betty Ann Eaton say Ruff, a big friendly dog, is being targeted by bylaw because he's an easy mark. Rod Mugford, the city's chief bylaw enforcement officer says his officers are required by law to pick up strays.

December

• Iqaluit City Council establishes a public safety committee in response to concerns caused by a string of attacks on women in the city. Despite agreement among councillors on the need for such a committee, debate gets heated over the committee's terms of reference. Council eventually agrees to send the matter to committee of the whole to draw up guidelines for the committee.

• Iqalummiut pack the Parish Hall for a tearful ceremony marking the national day of action on violence against women. People at the ceremony lay roses in memory of 14 women killed during the 1989 Montreal Massacre, plus two more for women and children in Nunavut who are victims of violence.

• An Edmonton woman becomes the first person in Nunavut's history to be sentenced for trying to smuggle drug profits out of the territory. Alicia Belcher, 22, gets one year in jail for possessing $240,000 garnered from the sale of crack cocaine in Iqaluit. While Belcher has no criminal record, Justice Earl Johnson says he handed down a stiff sentence to act as a deterrent.