Iqaluit becomes a city on April 19

IQALUIT — Two years after Nunavut’s creation, Iqaluit is poised to become the eastern Arctic’s first “city.”

On April 19, Iqaluit will officially become a city, amid much fanfare and soon-to-be-announced celebrations.

Iqaluit doesn’t yet have the $200 million tax base usually required for city status.

But a special territorial cabinet decree is helping Iqaluit make its official transformation from Town to City, just as Yellowknife did in 1970, three years after it became the capital of the Northwest Territories.

The announcement of Iqaluit’s new status will probably come as no surprise to most of its 6,000 or so residents, who are already seeing “City of Iqaluit” printed on recently-issued green recycling boxes.

This grand status for Nunavut’s capital will just confirm what everyone here already knows: that Iqaluit looks like a city and feels like a city — so, it’s a city.

It’s got neighbourhoods galore — from the hodge-podge of Lower Base to weird-and-wonderful Lego Land, Crystal Ridge, and posh Tundra Valley.

There’s an array of brand-new government and office buildings, along with the legislature’s sleek home and the posh new Igluvut complex.

And the urban phenomenon of traffic, from Iqaluit’s estimated 1,500 vehicles, is common. Scores of taxis add to the 24-hour flow of vehicles on the streets. A traffic cop untangles rush-hour jams at one busy intersection.

Meanwhile, there’s a constant bu of aircraft coming in and out of the airport.

Iqaluit has all the external trappings of a modern mini-city: its very own high-rise apartment block, a movie theatre bedecked with chandeliers, and nearly a dozen restaurants or fast-food joints.

If you get sick, there’s a hospital. If you want to drink, there are several bars and private clubs, including Canada’s busiest Royal Canadian Legion.

Iqaluit can satisfy many interests, too: there’s an arcade, a museum, two libraries and shops. You can take a course in jewellery-making or dabble in Thai cuisine, kayaking or Inuit square dancing.

Iqaluit is a melting pot, too, similar to many cities, and its residents are originally from just about anywhere else. This booming young population includes a changing mix of Inuit, Francophones, English Canadians and people from many other countries.

Since it became Nunavut’s capital and a centre for government jobs, Iqaluit has been siphoning away people from every region in the eastern Arctic, just as Barrow, Inuvik, Nuuk, Tromsø and Rovaniemi did in other circumpolar regions.

“I think more people from Pond Inlet live here than are back home,” said a former North Baffin resident. “Soon there will only be elders there.”

Leather jackets are becoming almost as numerous as amautiit, and, in the schools, kids from the Kitikmeot, Kivalliq and Baffin regions use English as a universal language to speak to each other.

Iqaluit’s traffic and store-signs are in Inuktitut and English. The schools go by Inuktitut names: Nakasuk, Inuksuk, Joamie and Aqsarniit.

Caribou antlers are perched on roofs. A polar bear skin hangs from a line outside a house. It’s not unusual to see a soapstone carver working outside. Snowmobiles race down the sides of the roads, the frozen shore is lined with boats, and sometimes a dog team goes by on the ice.

As Iqaluit grows, it’s a little rough around the edges, a reminder that only 50 years ago the community then known as Frobisher Bay consisted mainly of an airstrip and military buildings. The dump is still is plain view of the community. On a bad day you can smell the burning garbage.

Most roads are still unpaved, with giant potholes just waiting for the first thaw. Among the frustrations of getting around are the lack of sidewalks, stoplights and street names. The only way to find a house is to know its number and neighbourhood.

For a place with no street signs, Iqaluit’s rents are ridiculously high, with rents ranging higher than $1,800 per month for a two-bedroom apartment. House prices are equally stratospheric.

Last year 24 new single family residences went up, some with assessed values of more than $250,000. A dozen new apartment buildings were built, reflecting millions of dollars in investment. In 1999, $63 million was poured into private, commercial and public buildings.

Still, as in many cities, poverty is never far off. Around 20 per cent of the population is on social assistance, and many residents live in over-crowded social housing units.

The soup kitchen doesn’t lack for clients, and the homeless shelter is overcrowded.

The bars are full too, and the police are kept busy nearly every night scooping up drunks to spend the night at what may be Canada’s busiest drunk tank.

Urbanization has also brought anonymity and loneliness to Iqaluit. Nunavut’s capital can be a cold place, where — unlike any other community in Nunavut — passersby don’t automatically greet each other on the street.

And after April 19, Iqaluit will even have its very own civic holiday, a half-day break every year when Iqalungmiut, new and old, will be able to mull over their young city’s destiny.