Under the Arctic sun: The life of a Kenyan in Canadian archipelago

Until Thursday when it reported its first case, Nunavut, Canada, was one of the few remaining places on earth with no confirmed cases of coronavirus. Its capital city, Iqaluit (population 7,082 as of the last census), is my home.

When people ask where it is, I tell them to look at the squished-up bit at the very top of Canada on a world map. That’s where you’ll find me, one of approximately 36,000 Nunavummiut (the Inuktitut word for someone who lives in Nunavut).

The three most frequent questions I get are about the weather, the isolation and the population. How does someone who grew up at the Equator survive in a land of ice and snow? Why would anyone live so far away? What are the people like, and are there other black people?  

The weather

The weather is easier to deal with than expected. Unlike some cities directly south (major centres like Toronto, Montreal or Ottawa), it’s drier here, which makes it easier to dress for the weather. Where -10 Celsius in a place like Toronto can feel miserable due to the damp, it’s only at about -25 degrees Celsius up here that I start to feel the cold – really!

It’s still the Arctic though, so temperatures go down much further than that, into the -40 degrees  Celcius during windy days in January and February. There are rows of electrical outlets in parking spaces for people to plug their cars in to keep the battery charged when they are parked during the workday or overnight. There are temperatures where even that isn’t enough (at about -50 degrees Celsius) and everything must shut down because cars won’t start, even when they’ve been plugged in. On days like these, the city council will announce the closure and shuts down the city. That means everything – schools, offices even the taxi service.

What does -50 degrees Celsius feel like? Any bit of exposed skin hurts physically within seconds. Condensation from your breath forms droplets that stick to your eyelashes and freeze, making them heavy. We generally have multiple winter jackets for the different phases of cold. For the coldest weather, we bundle up in at least three layers of clothes – woollen tights and a long-sleeved top form the base layer, normal clothes for the mid-layer, and a protective top layer of waterproof trousers, heavy jacket, hat, mitts and thick boots.

The top layer adds 10 minutes of extra dressing and undressing to go anywhere. We walk around looking like penguins, our bodies barrel-shaped from all the clothing and thick mitts turning our hands into flippers.

Blizzard days are on a different level this far north. Temperatures rise (blizzards usually happen when the weather is ‘warm’ – at about -15 degrees Celsius) and so do the winds – the official threshold here is 60KPh winds or more over at least four hours. During a blizzard, I’ve taken half an hour to walk a distance that usually takes seven minutes, trying to battle the wind and make out a path through the snow that flies into my eyes and shifts under my feet. Sometimes the winds are high enough to tear the roofs off buildings and cause serious damage to cars and property from flying debris.

What’s harder to get used to than the cold, though, is the ever-changing light – up to 22 hours of daylight in the summer, with the reverse in winter – 22 hours of darkness. Now that it’s spring, the sunlight is getting longer. It’s bright daylight at 4.30 am and sunset is at 9pm. Last week, I covered my bedroom window with a black plastic bag to block the sunlight entering my room and waking me up too early.

The distance

The difficulty in getting here is one of the reasons that Nunavut was able to remain Covid-free for this long. There are very few entry points into the territory, and in response to the pandemic, the government has implemented the strictest travel regulations in Canada.

Iqaluit is the northernmost city in Canada at 63.7 degrees North, which is just under the Arctic circle (66.3 degrees North). It’s on Baffin Island, a massive island next to Greenland. The only ways in are by air or by sea. The closest flight is about three hours south to Ottawa, Canada’s capital city. By contrast, a flight to Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, is a mere 90 minutes away.

Food, medical supplies, construction materials, fuel and other consumer goods are either shipped in (only during the summer) or flown up. The population is also heavily reliant on mail for online shopping – everything from essentials like diapers, baby formula and detergent to Halloween costumes.

Despite its small size, Iqaluit gets its fair share of musicians, politicians, royalty and famous figures. For people who spend a lot of their lives travelling, there’s a certain cachet to visiting a place that so many consider unusual. And because of the city’s small size, one can get closer access to celebrities than normal.

Every election year, Iqalungmiut (Inuktitut for Iqaluit residents) get selfies with the leader of each political party (although not everyone considers a selfie with Justin Trudeau to be an accomplishment). Memorably, Leonardo DiCaprio was once spotted in a small community further north while he was on holiday after filming The Revenant.

The airport is an emergency landing stop for planes flying across the world, something that happens about once a month. Only last week, a US aircraft with five crew was grounded in Iqaluit after it was unable to land at its original destination.

The people

Who lives up here anyway? The indigenous population of Nunavut is Inuit, who can be found all the way from Alaska to Greenland. Inuit have lived in the Arctic for thousands of years and make up 85 per cent of the population in Nunavut. Nunavut Inuit traditionally speak Inuktitut or Inuinnaqtun, both of which remain widely spoken within the territory.

Making friends and finding a community in a small town is easier than in a big city; there’s less time commuting and more free time to join groups in town.

As for black people? There are plenty, enough for two black associations: the African Caribbean Association of Nunavut and the Nunavut Black History Society. There are lots of other Africans in town: Zimbabweans, Nigerians, Ethiopians, Cameroonians … you get the drift. I’m reliably informed that I am the only Kenyan in Iqaluit, although there are enough East Africans who speak Kiswahili for me to use it every week.

There’s also a large Filipino community. The Muslim community (approximately 300 in Iqaluit) is large enough to merit a mosque. Curious about Ramadhan fasting hours during long hours of daylight? The mosque follows the daylight hours of the nearest city, which is Ottawa.

Unlike larger cosmopolitan cities, one interacts much more closely with all these people from all over the world in one’s everyday life as friends and colleagues. In typical small-town fashion, your boss may also be in the summer softball league, or the postal worker that you see at the post office may be on your curling team.

Why have I stayed for five years? Why did I move here in the first place?  There are many reasons, but the main one is best expressed in the words of George Mallory, a mountaineer who climbed Mt Everest: “Because it’s there.”