History of Cambridge Bay

History currently being created... Cambridge Bay is also known as Ikaluktutiak which translate to "Good Fishing Place".top

Quick Facts

Getting Here

Cambridge Bay can be reached quite easily by air from southern Canada. Our community receives scheduled B737 jet service five days a week from Edmonton and Yellowknife via First Air and Canadian North airlines. First Air also provides scheduled ATR-72 turboprop service (daily, except Saturday) from Yellowknife.
If you've never been to Cambridge Bay, the price of an airline ticket may come as quite a shock when your travel agent first gives you the news. To prepare yourself for what you might expect to pay for a return airline ticket to our community, check out one of the following websites:

What to Expect When You Get Here

We have a Royal Bank branch (complete with an ATM machine accessible until 10pm), a full service Canada Post outlet, two department stores, and a fast food outlet that serves KFC and Pizza Hut. We receive a couple of dozen TV channels via cable, more via satellite dish, and we're wired to the rest of the world through local Internet access provided by Polarnet. We get our water delivered by truck and sewage hauled away by the same method.

You'll find teenagers playing video games at the local arcade. You'll hear Inuit elders speaking Inuinnaqtun as they pick up their mail at the post office. You'll see the headlights of hunters several miles out on the sea ice returning by snowmobile with their catch, to the eerie, hazy, welcoming glow of a town shrouded in ice fog during a -35c winter night (-50c or more with the wind-chill).

If we ever want to "get away from it all", a visit to the local travel agent will have us booked on a junket to Las Vegas - or ecotour in the Costa Rican jungle - in no time. Or you can simply drive your ATV five minutes outside of town along the Mount Pelly road where you'll come across musk ox grazing lazily all over the place. Bring your fishing rod along and catch a char dinner by the banks of Freshwater Creek. Drive a few minutes outside of the community in either direction and you'll come across a slew of cabins - our version of southern "cottages" - where more than a few residents pass their time after work and on weekends during our 24 hour summer daylight, May through July.

We've got Cadets, Brownies, Elks, and drum dancers. Hockey and curling in the winter, swimming in the summer. Saturday morning pancake breakfasts, sit down bingos, kids selling chocolates or flowers, to raise money for the new school gym, food bank, grad trip, or whatever might be needed at the moment. No trees shedding leaves to rake, no lawns to mow. What could be more perfect?
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About Alcohol

Open Communities (alcohol may be imported by permit first obtained from the Nunavut Liquor Commission)

• Cambridge Bay
• Taloyoak

Prohibited Communities (no alcohol may be imported into these communities)

• Gjoa Haven
• Kugaaruk
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Exploring Other Kitikmeot Communities

Cambridge Bay is the gateway to the Kitikmeot region. Two airlines, First Air and Kenn Borek Air, offer scheduled service that connects Cambridge Bay with Kugluktuk, and communities of the eastern Kitikmeot: Gjoa Haven, Taloyoak, and Kugaaruk. One charter airline based in Cambridge Bay, Adlair Aviation, can take you just about anywhere your heart desires with a choice of aircraft that ranges from the single-engine Beaver float plane, to a LearJet 25.
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Wildlife Export Regulations

It is an offence to remove wildlife or wildlife parts, other than a manufactured product, to a place outside Nunavut unless you obtain a Wildlife Export Permit. To export parts of marine mammals, you will need a Marine Mammal Transportation License. These permits must be obtained prior to the items leaving Nunavut and will not be issued after the items have been exported.

For certain species of wildlife or marine mammals, you may also require a C.I.T.E.S. Export Permit if your destination is outside Canada. This permit must be obtained prior to the item leaving the country.

A permit is not required to export Fish from Nunavut.

For more information, please contact the Cambridge Bay office of the Department of the Environment (Government of Nunavut) at 983-4167.
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