Tropical Culture in Canada's Multicultural Arctic Outpost

ON SATURDAY NIGHT, I had Indian food at a mosque potluck. The next day, I went to an African church service full of gospel music. In between, I went to a hockey game and stood on sea ice to watch a dogsled race. That's life in Iqaluit, a Canadian boomtown on the edge of the Arctic.

- MATTHEW PETTI

The semiautonomous Nunavut Territory has always been different from the rest of Canada. The majority of the people there are Inuit (singular: Inuk), a people known for their colorful animal skin fashion, soapstone carvings, and gregarious sense of humor.

“I love traveling in the Arctic. You'll always find something weird in the Arctic. Inuit are something funny,” said Inuk comedian Mary-Lee Aliyuk, wearing a sealskin skirt, during the Stand-Up North: Bush Party Baby tour.

On my flight into Iqaluit, announcements were read in English, French, and Inuktitut, the Inuit language. The whole city is filled with signs in the otherworldly Inuktitut ᐊᐆᑦᐅᐄ script. Fresh off the plane, I waited in line at a shop behind a traditionally tattooed Inuk mother wearing an amauti ᐃLᐊᐆᑎ, a sealskin parka with a built-in baby pouch just below the hood.

But Iqaluit ᐃᖃᓗᐃᑦ is also distinct within the Arctic. A mining boom and a buildup in the Canadian government's presence has brought a lot of demand for labor to the territorial capital. (Nunavut ᓄᓇᕗᑦ boasted the fastest-growing economy of any Canadian territory or province in 2024.) It’s drawing in a diverse and sometimes unexpected collection of people, including immigrants from tropical countries.

This multicultural outpost may be a picture of the future. As climate change shrinks the polar ice caps, governments and business interests are scrambling for a piece of the newly opened frontier. In 2018, China declared itself a “near-Arctic state” and published a grand polar strategy. Both major Canadian political parties are promising a military buildup in the Arctic. U.S. President Donald Trump has infamously threatened to annex both Greenland and Canada.