July 25, 2025
- mikepearsonsafety
- Jul 25
- 5 min read
A lot has happened since our last post. We have been warned several times about the size of the mosquitos in Manitoba but so far we have been pestered more by flies than mozzies; maybe the smoke has kept then away.
We had another smoky day in Winnipeg on Sunday so we visited the Royal Canadian Mint, gathered our gear for the flight to Iqaluit and prepped the trailer for 5 days at the Go RVing for the 10,000 km (we were a bit late-15000 kms); the tech’s eyes got pretty big when I said how far we have driven.
We were up early to drop off the trailer and the truck. There seemed to be a lot going on with the trailer brakes and we don’t have to muck around with the truck so I asked them to go over the trailer braking system again…..then a taxi to the airport.
It was a good flight on my favourite size of plane, center aisle two seats on either side…..when I am standing in the aisle my head hits the roof and my shoulder are bumping the open baggage compartments. It was a good flight, we only had 43 minutes to get to our next flight….two gates over. Easiest layover ever. The flight to Iqaluit was good, they served us dinner and a warmed up chocolate cookie for desert….nice.
It was two kilometer walk from the airport to the hotel, it felt good to be moving after a day of sitting. We ate a light dinner and wandered around the lower part of town and picked up some turnovers for breakfast. It was still full day light at 11:00 when we went to bed.
On Tuesday we slept in and then headed to the pool to start the triathlon. They have very nice 6 lane pool and a well equipped gym. We swam 750 metres then headed downstairs to the gym. Donna rode the only upright spin bike and I rode a recumbent bike for 40 minutes. We were not allowed to go for a run and then go back into the pool so our transition included walking to our hotel to drop off our gear. The we ran….5 kms out to the west end of town and back.
What a thrill to be running in Nunavut. The finish line was at the front steps of the hotel.
After we were done with the triathlon we took a nap and then headed out looking for food. We had seen the CBC North building the day before and decided to drop by to see if they knew about our story….nope (“emails get lost” they said) but they took our card and said they were interested. We still needed food so we hit North Mart for sandwiches. North Mart is like an IGA.
We spent the next couple of hours walking around Astro Hill, it is kind of a hub for the community. The high school is on the hill as well as the largest hotel and the only movie theatre. It has where the first survey stake was placed when they were laying out the airport during WWII.
We were hungry again and went into the hotel for food, it opened at 4:00, the had a sign on the door open at 5:00 then open at 6:00………arrrgh.
This was a pretty low point for us…..we were tired, nobody cared we were there and the stupid bar wasn’t opening……We sat on top of Astro Hill looking at the scenery talking how lucky we were to be on this journey together and decided that we wouldn’t let other people get us down. “ We are in Iqaluit baby!” As we climbed down from the rock we got a call from CBC North, we had an interview the next day at 1:30.
Finally one of the restaurants opened and we got fed, Artic char for Donna and Caribou stew for me. We headed back to the hotel for a good sleep.
The next morning we awoke looking forward to our interview and another walk around town. Little did we know that the day would turn out to be one of the best days of the trip.
We walked to the Black Hart Café for breakfast, great coffee and breakfast sandwiches. Then we visited two galleries looking for pins, stickers and mementos. Two very different galleries but both had a good selection of work by local artists.
After dropping off our goodies at the hotel we headed to CBC for the interview. On our way there we received and email from Pam for North Winds Expedition (a fellow racer in Yellowknife put us in touch)…”would we like join her when she fed the dog sled team?” obviously the answer was YES!!. The interview with Lissie Anaviapik, at CBC went well, I will add a link to the interview when I get it.
We met Pam at her home for the ride to the dog area. Her dog Mossen is a 14 year old retired sled dog, he took up most of the back seat. Luckily Donna is small😊. We spent a great couple of hours with Pam learning about the dogs, how they interact as a team, and the dynamics between individuals and family groups….that two hours could probably be a blog to itself. To an outsider dog sled teams might seem chaotic but there is a very defined hierarchy to a well run team.
After leaving Pam and the dogs we went for a hike in the Sylvia Grinnell Territorial Park. It is beautiful. The falls are 4 metres high at low tide and under a meter high low tide.
We hiked to the falls and dipped our feet in the ocean at the base of the falls. We had hoped to dunk in the North Atlantic ocean but it wasn’t practical so dunking our feet will suffice.
As we were leaving the park the smell of French fries wafted across the tundra (not joking). There was a food truck set up outside the Nunavut Brewing Company ᓄᓇᕗᒥ ᕕᐊᓕᐅᖅᑏᑦ.
We were tired and hungry so we followed our noses. After ordering burgers and poutine we found a seat and met Big Jon. Jon work for Environment Canada by day and becomes a trivia master at night. Jon loved our story and said he would like to pass the hat around during half time break. He collected $520 in about 10 minutes…the bar isn’t that big, what an awesome crowd.
Over the evening several people came up and thanked us for including Nunavut in our journey. We were moved to tears several times that night. One time was when we saw our final placing in trivia night…..two things we can’t do: trivia and canoe!
Kidding aside, this night renewed our mental energy and will be in our hearts for a long time. Thank you to Big Jon and everyone in the pub that night.
The night wasn’t quite over. On our walk home Freddie and Sarah pulled over and asked if we needed a ride, awesome timing. Sarah told us about a place on the river that we had to see and offered to take us there and then drive us to the airport, the answer was obviously YES!!
What a great day.
The next day Sarah took us to bend in the river that was incredibly beautiful, what a great way to wrap up out time in Iqaluit.
While we were at the airport Daron interviewed us for the local paper….we climbed on the plane ready for a relaxing flight and happy to be getting back to our truck and trailer.
