Iqaluit

The town with the funny name. We visited this place as our second-to-last stop on our arctic tour. We spent a little bit longer here than in other places (three days). We were quite lucky in our timing (actually, our planning was quite good) because we happened to arrive in time for the Toonik Tyme festival. Advertised as "a way for local residents to celebrate the return of spring as a community and also as an opportunity for visitors to experience the unique culture of the Canadian Arctic", this festival was kind of neat in the sense that they had several events of the variety that one would not expect. For example, one would think tha they would discourage the "igloo" as a stereotype. Instead, they have an igloo building contest (we came in last with our lopsided semi-stable and half-melted structure, as seen below).

We had fun anyways. There was also a neat sport where you had to kick a ball suspended from a rope. There were 6 year olds there that were better than me (Manny was actually not that bad. He placed in an age category that was only two years younger than his own). The second day, we went tubing at the Road to Nowhere. It was fun mainly because they had sort of an obstacle course in the snow. I flew off the tube on the first jump.

Manny made it through the tunnel but his run was terminated at the half-pipe with a bail of epic proportions (he dislocated his shoulder when he landed on it, effectively ending our day). The third day, our flight left at around 6 but we managed to build a snowman to mark our presence.