Iqaluit

Iqaluit became the capital when Nunavut was created in 1999 as the outcome of the largest Indigenous land claim settlement in Canadian history, giving Inuit title over about a fifth of Canada's land area. The city has around eight thousand people, no road to anywhere else, and everything not flown in arrives by sealift during the few ice-free weeks. The legislative assembly chamber is arranged as a circle with a mace incorporating narwhal tusk and Inuit carving, and it operates by consensus government without political parties. The Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum holds Inuit art, and printmaking and carving are major local industries.

What you actually see

• The legislative assembly - a consensus chamber with a narwhal tusk mace.
• The sealift economy - a year's supplies delivered in a few ice-free weeks.
• The Inuit art - carving and printmaking in galleries and the museum.
• Sylvia Grinnell park - tundra and a river at the edge of the city.

When to go

July to September for open water, the least cold and the sealift; winter offers aurora and dog sledding but temperatures reach minus fifty with wind. Flights are expensive year-round.

Honest expectations

Flights and accommodation are extremely expensive, and food prices are among the highest in Canada. There are no roads out of the city. Weather cancels flights for days.

Nearby

Pangnirtung lies north on Baffin Island; the rest of Nunavut is by air.