Nunavut hospitality

So, some of you may have noticed that in the last blog post I briefly alluded to a two-hour wait at the Iqaluit airport our first day here.  We are renting a house and the person with the house keys was supposed to be meeting us at the airport. We had a first name, no phone number or any contact information.  We stood around waiting for nearly 2 hours with our 14 suitcases, dog and cat, overhead paging this guy. JJ made multiple phone calls to our limited Iqaluit contacts (many of whom are away on vacation), before we finally decided to load everything into a van and drive to the only hotel in town that is pet-friendly.

We got everything loaded into the van and were halfway to the hotel when we got a return phone call from the homeowner.  Apparently, the guy who was supposed to give us the keys had a flight to catch so he couldn't wait around the airport.  He decided to give them to a buddy of his, but gave him the wrong date to meet us.  Long story short, we got keys from someone ELSE in town, and didn't have to stay in a hotel after all.

Today there was a knock at the door and a kind, somewhat abashed fellow introduced himself as the "buddy" that was given the wrong date to meet us with the keys.  He had spent the day yesterday on his boat, oblivious to us standing around the airport, having a wonderful day in the balmy 17 degree weather (a heat wave for up here).  He was extremely apologetic (though it wasn't his fault) and offered us 2 huge fish from his catch: Arctic Char!

Here fishy, fishy, fishy......

According to www.seafoodsource.com, "The Inuit of Canada have enjoyed char for hundreds of years; they freeze the fish and eat them like Popsicles."  I'm not sure how accurate that is, but I know Inuit have been eating Arctic char for a long time. Arctic char is a member of the trout and salmon family of fish.  I have to admit, I'm going to have to look online to figure out how to cook this, and I certainly won't do it justice.  How exciting though, for our first home cooked Iqaluit meal to be an authentic Inuit dish!

Our dinner!  Ha, just kidding.
This is how Martha Stewart cooks Arctic char.
http://www.marthastewart.com/344559/grilled-whole-arctic-char