Canada’s Ambassador to Denmark, Carolyn Bennett, stands in her Copenhagen office with her collection of Inuit art. (Photo courtesy of Canadian Embassy in Denmark)
Ambassador offers to-do list for Danish, Greenlandic visitors to Nunavut
From fishing to Arctic sports there’s lots to do, says Carolyn Bennett
After a nearly 10-year pause, a new season of Iqaluit-Nuuk flights kicks off Wednesday afternoon.
Carolyn Bennett, Canada’s ambassador to Denmark, says she hopes the availability of regular direct flights will deepen the connection between the two regions.
The two-hour flights between the capital cities of Nunavut and Greenland will be offered by Air Greenland every Wednesday until Oct. 23.
In light of the inaugural flight, Bennett offered some recommendations to Danish and Greenlandic travellers coming to Nunavut for the first time, in a phone interview from her Copenhagen office on Monday.
- Go fishing in the place of many fish
Iqaluit can be translated from Inuktitut as “place of many fish.” In 1998, when travelling to Iqaluit, Bennett said she took the city’s name up on its promise by getting herself a fishing licence. She the mission was fruitful, as she caught some Arctic char in Sylvia Grinnell River.
Fishing licences are available from the territorial Department of Environment, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and at fishing lodges and some retail stores in Nunavut.
- Get to know a carver
Bennett said she has brought many of the Inuit carvings she collected from Nunavut with her to Copenhagen. Most of those dancing bears and walruses are now in her office at the Canadian Embassy.
“I just think it’s so impressive talking to artists,” she said. “To listen to them talk — the art was in there, and they just released it from the rock.”
Cultural artifacts made by Nunavummiut from sealskin, wool or stone could be a good start for a collection. Even if it’s something like a pair of sealskin slippers, it’s worth it, Bennett said.
Iqaluit has several places offering authentic Inuit art, including Carvings Nunavut and Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum.
- Get cultured
Even though Greenland and Nunavut share similarities, the drum dancing, throat singing and language are different, said Bennett, and those cultural and linguistic differences are worth exploring.
All summer, Parks Nunavut is holding cultural Learn To… events. The workshops are designed to celebrate Inuit culture and will teach participants a whole slate of traditional skills, including how to throat sing, drum dance, operate a dog team, and make dried fish.
The workshops are held in the Sylvia Grinnell Park pavilion or Unikkaarvik Visitors Centre in Iqaluit.
They are free.
- Sport it up
Hockey is the most distinctly Canadian sport, but it’s important to “expand beyond that,” Bennett said.
Travelling to Nunavut might be a great opportunity to try Inuit games such as the two-foot high kick, the head pull and the Alaskan high kick.
These games have roots in Inuit culture and were conceived to help people prepare for the way of life in the Arctic.
The Arctic Winter Games Arena in Iqaluit offers drop-in soccer games and other activities. The full schedule is on the City of Iqaluit website.
- Yes, maple syrup
Hot maple syrup poured on snow is one of the most Canadian treats.
“It’s still one of the favourite things that we do,” Bennett said.
While there is the potential for snow in any month of the year in Iqaluit, this activity might be better suited for the capital city’s colder months. Air Greenland’s final Nuuk-Iqaluit flight is scheduled for Oct. 23.
- Get to know the people
“The most important thing is the people, their pride and culture,” Bennett said.
The land, the water and the ice offer images perfect for a postcard, she said.
“You’ve got to find the opportunities to meet with the people and be and learn.”
Whether it’s talking to elders or just asking a random stranger what they are up to, all of this will help you understand the Arctic a bit better, Bennett said.
I’m sorry, but 25+ years later, it is much harder to catch a char at the river.
Iqaluit is not very a very tourist-friendly place to visit. Even the suggestions on this list, though well-intentioned, are half-baked at best. Try Inuit Games? What does that even mean? Is there a place where this happens on the regular? Just stop someone on the street? What does she mean? Another suggestion, “Maple Syrup.” And then it goes on to say you can pour it on snow, when then it informs us that the flights go until October. So one of the six suggested attractions is not an option.
By the way, Iqaluit just means “Fish”, in the plural. It doesn’t mean “place of” anything. It sounds like a bad cowboys and Indians movie when people do that.
Carolyn is obviously enjoying her cushy gig in Copehagen, though it has entirely dulled her mind.
Liberal jibberish, she’s no expert
If I’m from Nuuk, why in the world would I come to Iqaluit for any of these activities? Visiting family? Sure! A short stop on my way to Toronto? Of course! Just ask a random stranger what they are up to? Awkward! Maple syrup? Really?
7. Get stanky-legged while waiting in line at the b&w store.
Seriously, nobody goes to iqaluit to be a tourist.
I flew this route about 11 years ago and loved Greenland. Nuuk is a cool and largely clean city with some great restaurants a mall and bars. Fly north to places like Ilulissat where you can visit the Icefjord or Sisimiut is also beautiful.
There is nothing comparable in Iqaluit, which is a dirty, overpriced and far less friendly city in my opinion. I have no idea why anyone from Nuuk or Greenland generally would want to fly west, besides curiosity perhaps. I suspect it would reinforce an appreciation for what they have, and relief they don’t live like us.
Realistically, this is a route THROUGH Iqaluit (to the rest of North America), and not TO Iqaluit. That is the way we marketed it many years ago through the Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce, when we were trying then to convince airlines to re-open the route.
With all the Liberal efforts to establish conservation areas in Nunavut while they have been in government, I am surprised Baffin ecotourism did not make Ambassador Bennett’s list.
Oh wait. The most ambitious goal of the Nunavut Tourism Industry is to make it into a $1B economic sector for us, with most of that benefit accruing to southern based operators, cruise ship owners and airlines.
We need billions in economic activity for us to pull ourselves out of poverty. Tourism clearly will never be the mainstay of our economy, or even a big part of it, employing and contracting enough for us to gain some semblance of this prosperity.
Even in the most successful tourism areas in the world, like the Caribbean, big chunks of the local populations still live in abject poverty. Yet Liberals have convinced people into thinking that each of our conservation areas will result us all becoming outfitters to cater to a new flood of well heeled adventurers.
In Nunavut, we need to conserve what is truly threatened and precious to us. No other reason or inducement is necessary. Iqaluit does not need to be more tourism friendly like Nuuk. All Iqaluit has to do is be a source of common sense decisions.
That is why Iqaluit was made capital in the first place, not to impress Eurotrash.
The only tourists in Nunavut are these GN workers, who score multiple trips a year for useless conventions or “meetings”. Want to travel? Work for the tourism department at the GN!
Are any of these comments from actual indigenous inhabitants of the Arctic or just privileged, displaced colonizers and settlers?