Hi folks! Beautiful day here in Iqaluit, much appreciated after almost a week of dismal, cold and wet weather. The sun is shining! I can’t wait to get my work day over and done with so I can go for a good long hike. I now have a favourite route along the coast between Iqaluit and Apex, which I thought I would tell you a little more about!

Iqaluit means "place of many fish" in Inuktitut. It’s located near the mouth of the Sylvia Grinnell River that empties into Frobisher Bay named after Martin Frobisher, an Englishman that was in search of the Northwest Passage, but discovered Frobisher Bay instead. He originally thought it was the route to China! Besides thinking he had discovered the Passage, Frobisher also believed that he had discovered gold on one of the islands in the bay, and he took tons of it home to England, only to find out it was fool's gold. Now there’s a fool! Between 1955 and 1987 the settlement of Iqaluit was known as Frobisher Bay.

Frobisher Bay was a small community until the U.S. Air Force selected the Inlet as the site of a major airbase in 1942. When the American Airstrip became operational in 1943 the Hudson's Bay Company moved its trading post to Apex. Apex is part of the community of Iqaluit, separate by a big-ass hill. In 1963 the American Air Force left Frobisher Bay. Then in 1987 the community of Frobisher Bay officially became Iqaluit, reverting to its original Inuktitut name.

The Inuit are a nomadic people and like most of the communities in Nunavut, Iqaluit was a forced settlement. I work with a woman who is in her seventies who can remember living off the land with her family. They travelled by dog sled and when she was seven she remembers comnig into Iqaluit with her father and their dog team to get supplies, and when they went to leave the RCMP shot all of their dogs so that they couldn't. No wonder the Inuit are so skeptical of the federal government!

At one time, Apex was the site of the local hospital so nurses, doctors and the sick had to travel by foot between the two communities along the coast where I have been hiking. Today there is a road between the two, although word has it that it is frequently closed in the dead of winter.

There are funny little round houses found in town. Because the town is so small, it is very ecclectic with every style from the past 50 years mashed together in neighborhoods.

They actually have seadoo races and competitions in this little pond in the middle of town!

Here is the view looking back into Iqaluit from the trail to Apex.

The original Hudson's Bay company buildings in Apex.

Low tide on the bay. There is no real port facilities, so when the ships come in to drop off supplies they come in at high tide and when the tide drops they rest on the seafloor and truck drive out to unload supplies. It is not the best system!

A pretty stream through town at sunset.

That's all for now! Over and out from Iqaluit.