Iqaluktuuttiaq

Or: Cambridge Bay

Part 1 in a postcard series from the Canadian Arctic. For paying subscribers.

A soft snow is falling over Cambridge Bay, a small village on Victoria Island in the western Canadian Arctic. It’s 10 pm, but there is still plenty of light in the sky, and if the clouds would just clear, you might be able to see forever.

The end of the road in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.

You would see down to the North Warning base, a large military radar installation that scans the skies for Russian planes. You’d see the giant pumpkin-hued science facility, brand-new and waiting for researchers to return after Covid. You’d see the dump and the airport, and maybe the sand bar where Roald Amundsen’s boat, the Maud, sat for nearly a century before a team of Norwegians lifted it out of the water with giant balloons.