‘Curvy and stoic’ polar bear licence plates return to Nunavut

When Sandi Chan bought herself a car a few weeks ago, she had a lot to be happy about.

After 13 years of carpooling and cabbing across Iqaluit, she is enjoying her first car “like a teenager,” she said, showing off the large trunk and folding seats of her taupe 2013 Subaru Crosstrek.

Not only did it allow her to fit more chores in one evening, the new car came with a small, more symbolic perk — a freshly-minted polar bear licence plate with blue and yellow outline and red inuksuk in the middle.

“It’s curvy and stoic,” Chan said, adding that it goes well with her car which also has “a lot of curves.”

Chan’s only disappointment is that she only got one plate, for the back of the car.

“I did not know that we only get one — I wish we could get a pair so it sandwiches the car,” she said.

“It’ll be like a polar bear sandwich.”

Chan might look into putting a vanity plate at the front but it’s not urgent, she said.

“High on the priority is getting a block heater before it gets to -40 C,” she said.

Nunavut’s return to a bear-shaped licence plate was announced last year as part of the territory’s 25th anniversary celebrations. The design was unveiled in May.

It replaces a rectangular plate that featured a colourful montage of the northern nights, polar bear and inuksuk.

The rectangular design was introduced in 2012 in place of the original plain blue and white bear-shaped plate, a relic from when Nunavut was part of the Northwest Territories.

The original polar bear plate has since become a collectors’ item, sometimes sold at auction for hundreds of dollars.

“The shape is so unique to the North, and it’s so lovely to have it back,” said Chan, who sent a selfie of herself with the licence plate to her family and friends immediately after getting it.

“It’s such an identifier. Like it’s on key chains and T-shirts and souvenirs and all that stuff, so it’s nice to be aligned with that again.”

All registered Nunavut vehicles are eligible for a redesigned plate, and Chan is starting to notice more of them around Iqaluit.

She says it would nice if other Arctic jurisdictions, like Alaska, Yukon and Greenland would also adopt the bear-shaped licence plate.

“It’ll be kind of cool if it was like a, ‘Welcome to circumpolar Arctic’ thing,” she said.