‘Blizzard capital of Nunavut’: Baker Lake residents wait for power to come back on
Repair crews expected to arrive in community later Friday; some houses in second day without electricity
Crews from Qulliq Energy Corp. departed Iqaluit on a charter flight Friday bound for Baker Lake to begin repairs after a partial‑community outage left some residents without power for more than 24 hours. Other Nunavut communities, including Pond Inlet, Rankin Inlet, Arviat and Pangnirtung, also experienced weather‑related outages over the New Year’s holiday. (File photo)
Updated Jan. 2 at 5:15 p.m. ET
Dean Imaima Napatchie Noah celebrated his 10th birthday in the dark and without his friends Thursday when high winds damaged power lines, leaving his home and about four others in Baker Lake without electricity for more than 24 hours.
“What a way to ring in being 10 years old,” said his father Noah Malaya in a Facebook message earlier Friday afternoon.
“We tried to salvage his party, sang happy birthday in the dark and ate Rice Krispies treats and Jell-O.”
The outage began around 8 a.m. Thursday, and Qulliq Energy Corp. crews were initially unable to reach the site safely due to the severe winter conditions.
A charter carrying additional technicians left Iqaluit at 1 p.m. Friday and is expected to arrive in Baker Lake at about 5:35 p.m., after stops in Coral Harbour and Chesterfield Inlet to pick up extra crew, QEC said in an email.
Malaya said the blackout left his family without heat when their generator stopped working Thursday night and there was not enough fuel to run their backup.
All the food in his fridge is spoiled, he added.
“It feels like I’ve been taken back to when they had matchbox houses — only one lamp to light the whole house,” Malaya said.
“As to why they don’t station anyone here as the blizzard capital of Nunavut isn’t even worth my best guess.”
According to Environment Canada, Baker Lake experienced harsh winter conditions Thursday into Friday with strong winds reaching 40 to 46 km/h and gusts up to 64 km/h. Blowing and drifting snow reduced visibility, and with the wind chill temperatures fell as low as –27 C.
Other Nunavut communities where power was affected by the weather have seen their services restored.
On Wednesday, Pond Inlet had a blown fuse caused by poor weather conditions. It was replaced Thursday.
Rankin Inlet experienced a nearly five-hour partial outage on Wednesday caused by high winds impacting the lines, while Arviat had a one‑hour planned outage on Wednesday to repair a downed line.
High winds also caused a partial community power outage in Pangnirtung on Wednesday, but crews were able to restore power by Thursday morning. Coral Harbour faced a partial outage Wednesday which was fully resolved the same evening.
Note: This story was updated to include the new scheduled landing time for crews to arrive in Baker Lake
I live in a different community but we are dealing with the same problem.
Not just with power lines but also with housing maintenance, people were left with no heat because housing workers don’t know how to fix anything. A lot of people with no water because housing don’t know how to fix the boilers.
Where I live it seems like housing is hiring people with no experience, lying about resumes.
I live in Nunavut but I won’t say where I am from.
In Nunavut jobs are often a glorified welfare scheme, and ‘representation’ is considered a greater good than real world knowledge.
Housing knows the people they are hiring have no experience. Heck most hires dont even have a high school diploma. They just do it so they can say they hired a few locals, who have no plans to get certified. Why do you think it is that most positions involving a certain skill set are filled by the “fly-in” types?
If only there were a solution to keep your food from spoiling…. a way to keep your food cold without electricity.
“He’s such a good salesman, he can sell freezers to Inuit…”🤣