Rhythm of the Tides: my arctic experience

Lake Geraldine

The ancient Inuit melted snow with their qulliqs to get drinking water during the winter when everything was frozen. How does Iqaluit, a modern town of more than seven thousand people, supply water to its citizens during the winter? And how reliable is that supply?

Today, per capita consumption of water in the north, estimated at over 300 litres per person, per day, is orders of magnitude higher than it was even fifty years ago. That doesn't mean that every citizen consumes that much water. The biggest users are the industrial and commercial sectors. How secure is the water supply of arctic communities?

Has Iqaluit grown beyond its limits of sustainability?

Lake Geraldine is an artificial lake located directly north of Iqaluit and high above it. It was created by the construction of a dam to serve as the town's water supply. But the city's rapid growth has triggered some warning bells. The water left in the reservoir at the end of winter, before the ice and snow begin to melt to refill it, is reaching dangerously low levels. And as the town continues to grow, it's only a question of time before a water crisis occurs.

Don and I decide to pay Geraldine a visit. It's a good climb to it, but we're not in a hurry and we stop here and there to look at flowers and ice and snow patches still lingering from the long winter. They are simple reminders, if we needed any, that we're in the arctic.

We reach the southern edge of the lake just as a light mist rolls in from the bay engulfing it and us, but visibility isn't bad. We can easily make out the far shore of the lake and the power generating plant at the end of the dam. The plant is a major user of water and is strategically located close to the source.

What's feeding Geraldine?

We're off to find out. From the dam, we follow the valley and soon, we find a string of small lakes connected one to the other by small stony streams. The latter are not only pleasing to the eye, but also to our ears; as we get closer to them we hear their murmurs. It's as if the stones and pebbles lining their beds have been tuned to turn the water's energy into a melody. It's an alluring sound, and we sit at the side of one to relax and listen to nature's unending symphony.

The water flows relentlessly, cascading from one small lake to another, producing an almost hypnotic effect. I imagine individual water droplets moving along and being repelled by every rock and pebble they make contact with, causing them to change direction with every tiny interaction. Yet the water takes it in stride. It's not bothered by their presence, as it playfully takes the path of least resistance seemingly unperturbed. Eventually its leisurely journey ends in lake Geraldine where every drop of it becomes perfectly still. But before long, the same water that's bubbling down this peaceful stream will enter someone's home and satiate a child's thirst, or help cook a family's dinner.

We know the water is cold because it comes from the melting permafrost, but we find it irresistible. So, we take off our boots and stick our feet in it. Ouch! It's numbingly cold and we suddenly understand what Scoffy must have felt like when he went for a plunge in Frobisher Bay, at Apex.

We move on and soon discover that we need to be careful where we step. No, it's not fear of snakes. There are none here. It's fear of getting our boots wet. As more layers of permafrost melt, hundreds of tiny streams carry water to the larger streams and some are not visible until we're almost on top of them. In some areas it looks like we're in a water maze. How do we get out?

During the winter, this valley is covered with snow and in early summer, when the snow starts to melt, this entire area must be a lake. If we had been here a month earlier, we might have been standing in a foot or two of water rather than the inch or two we see around us, here and there.

High above a hilltop, we spot a geodesic dome sitting on a steel-beam structure and we decide to head towards it. As we get closer we can see several tall communication towers ahead of it. We've stumbled upon what must have been part of the Distant Early Warning System built in the fifties. The big white dome actually houses a radar station. The towers received signals from the radar unit inside the dome and transmitted them to military command centres in Canada and the U.S. The structures we see in front of us have been largely replaced by orbiting satellites.

At the base of two towers there is a red panelled enclosure that looks much like a small house, which we assume contains the communication equipment. Decades earlier this whole area would have been restricted and protected by tall chain-link fences. But now we're free to wander about without any alarms going off.

The view from the first red house we reach is rewarding. We have the bay off in the distance, in all its glory under a sunny sky, and the roofs of the Plateau houses down below. From here they look rather ordinary, and unimpressive. They don't look like the million-dollar houses that we have been told about, but we reserve judgement until we get there. Of course, we have to remind ourselves that everything here is much more expensive, but still!

Heading north from one hilltop to another, and one communication tower to another, we stumble onto the old upper U.S. base, where we find hundreds of empty ammunition shells that are not remnants from the old days. These are recent debris left by people who come here for rifle practice. By the looks of it, one would think that there are lots of hunters in town, but maybe people come here to sharpen their shooting skills in case a polar bear decides to wander into town, something that happens very rarely, we're told!

All that remains from the old base are huge concrete foundations and an enigmatic pier in a pond down below. It's a massive concrete structure sticking out from the shore at least ten metres. We're baffled by it. Why such a massive pier in a small pond? But here it is. It's unmistakeable!

The pond water is sparkling under the sun and its bright cobalt blue offers a remarkable contrast to the shore, which sprawls with greenish yellow mosses and sprinkled with myriads of white stones. From a distance it looks barren and forlorn, but from up close it's alive with tiny flowers.

We're certainly getting a good workout today with all the ups and downs, but now it's mostly down. We descend to the road below and it's mostly downhill to the Plateau. Thankfully, there's not much traffic on it because every time a car or truck goes by we're engulfed in a dust cloud. There goes the benefit of our hike and all the clean air we have been breathing! Drivers don't make an effort to slow down to reduce the size of the cloud. We're in the middle of nowhere and almost everyone is in a hurry. Civility doesn't seem to have much of a place here.

Where are the million dollar houses? As we enter the Plateau, we see mostly apartments for people of modest means. It strikes me that this is the type of accommodations that Habitat for Humanity should be building to make a dent on the critical housing shortage and help Inuit families who don't have government jobs.

Farther down the hill we find the big houses, not too dissimilar to the one Habitat for Humanity is building in Apex. I believe that it's not just the high cost of bringing in materials that sent prices sky high here; it's also the law of supply and demand. Developers are raking in huge profits in this captive market.

But, who are these developers?