Land of Opportunity

Canada is poised for a golden age of Indigenous tourism

- Todd Plummer

SUMMER IN THE Arctic Circle is actually idyllic. Twenty-four hours of blinding sun warms the air into the balmy 60s and 70s, and every now and again a frigid polar gust proves surprisingly refreshing. And having gone for a dip in the Beaufort Sea at the height of summer, I can confirm that the water there was not much colder than any of my childhood beaches in Maine. Travel is all about closing the gap between what we know and what we think we know, right?

Still, the far north of Canada’s Northwest Territories can be inhospitable, and the weather can turn on a dime. As we drove up the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway, which soars over the most vast land I have ever seen, blasts of polar air threatened to flay the sides off our van. I wondered, How did people live up here before cars, Arc’teryx jackets or grocery stores?