Iqaluit is to North Pole skiers what Namche Bazaar is to Everest climbers.
Iqaluit is well known to North Pole skiers as the last outpost before the games begin. Here goes from the Guardian:
“A friend’s grandfather had stopped in at the trading post, leaving his dogs and sled outside with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). As he haggled inside, gunshots rang out. He ran outside to find his dogs dead. “He tried to tell the RCMP that his family was across the bay and now he had no way of getting to them,” she says.
The man’s story is common: many Inuit say they were trapped in permanent settlements after their dogs, their only means of transport, were killed by police. The RCMP claims some dogs were lawfully destroyed over concerns about public health and safety; many Inuit say it was to urbanise them.”
