Cambridge Bay (Iqaluktuuttiaq)

The Hub Of Nunavut'S Kitikmeot Region On Victoria Island, Home Of The Canadian High Arctic Research Station, And The Last Resting Place Of Roald Amundsen'S Ship Maud · Cambridge Bay, Nunavut

Iqaluktuuttiaq means the good fishing place, and the Arctic char running through the narrows here have brought people to this spot on Victoria Island for a very long time. It is now the largest community in western Nunavut and the hub of the Kitikmeot - about eighteen hundred people, a runway that takes jets, and the CANADIAN HIGH ARCTIC RESEARCH STATION, a federal science facility opened in 2019 that has made the town an unlikely centre of Arctic research. In the bay lies the MAUD, the ship Roald Amundsen built for his attempt to drift across the pole; she sank here in 1930 and sat on the bottom until a Norwegian salvage operation raised her and took her home in 2018. What is left is the sunken hulk of another vessel, the stone ruins of a Hudson's Bay post, a beautiful old Anglican church built from a shipwreck, and tundra that goes on without interruption in every direction. This is the western Arctic, and almost nobody comes.

Iqaluktuuttiaq, Victoria Island, Kitikmeot Region, Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Canada

A LIVED-IN ARCTIC TOWN, NOT AN ATTRACTION: there is no gate, no admission and no season. What has hours is everything indoors. THE CANADIAN HIGH ARCTIC RESEARCH STATION runs public tours and has visitor space, but ON A LIMITED AND CHANGING BASIS - contact them before building a trip around it. The May Hakongak Community Library and Heritage Centre keeps short weekday hours. ACCESS IS BY SCHEDULED JET FROM YELLOWKNIFE OR EDMONTON via Canadian North; THERE IS NO ROAD TO ANYWHERE and weather cancels flights regularly, so build spare days into any itinerary. The one hotel and the handful of rooms in town are limited and should be booked well ahead. Alcohol rules in Nunavut are strict and vary by community - check the current position for Cambridge Bay before travelling.

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