Canada to flatten last igloo
2007-08-17 18:08
Iqualuit - The last igloo in Canada's far north, which housed a family restaurant for 27 years, is set to be demolished to make room for offices, amid a flurry of economic activity in the remote Arctic.
Purchased in May by an Edmonton-based hotel operator, the Kamotiq Inn restaurant is to be replaced in the coming months by a 4 645 square-metre office building.
The eatery at the main "Four Corners" intersection of Iqaluit, just 200km south of the Arctic Circle, is the only extant example of modern igloo architecture, inspired by the igloo shape and popularised in the 1950s and 1960s, in the North.
It was actually built in 1980 by two schoolteachers with the help of local townsfolk out of normal building materials.
The couple was fascinated by the "igloo shape", said Suzie Michael, a former student who pitched in, hammering nails and painting the exterior.
"When I was growing up, I lived in (snow) igloos and it reminds me of that life," said her father, Inuit elder Simonie Michael, savouring Arctic char for lunch.
Global warming
He has eaten here almost every day since it opened, enjoying "the warm hospitality, the food and the beer", and would like it to remain, he said.
But restaurant manager Brian Czar, who will soon be out of a job, said: "Times are changing. The North is opening up, the city is growing and there's a growing demand for real estate in Iqaluit."
Indeed, an international rivalry has heated up as global warming opens up the vast Arctic to economic activity.
Canada is at odds, however, with the United States, Russia, Denmark and Norway over it and parts of the Arctic seabed believed to hold 25% of the world's undiscovered oil and gas reserves.
To bolster its claim, Canada has beefed up its military presence here, announcing last week its first Arctic deep sea port in Nanisivik and military base in Resolute, as well as six to eight new Navy ice-breakers.
Oil and mining companies, meanwhile, are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on Arctic exploration.
Soon, forestry companies are expected to follow the Boreal Forest creeping north.
Cruise ships are multiplying, allowing tourists to see polar bears and the spectacular break-up of Arctic ice each spring.
Doubling population
As well, the establishment of Canada's Nunavut territory in April 1999, splitting lands from the Northwest Territories to settle an aboriginal land claim, created thousands of government jobs in its new capital, Iqaluit, doubling its population to 7 000.
For the first time, the North's population has topped 100 000, according to the latest census in 2006.
Outside the Kamotiq Inn, newer Suzuki Vitaras, Ford F150s and Honda Civics zip along pot-hole peppered roads.
Cars are relatively new to Iqaluit. A decade ago, there were only a handful of taxicabs here, ferrying visitors.