^ Without the street sign, and with few signs on other roads leading to it, it can be a little hard to find the Road to Nowhere, and indeed I missed the turnoff a few times at first. But I've also heard that the Queen wants to ride on pavement (and that roads have been paved especially for her, including Queen Elizabeth II Way in Iqaluit), which the Road to Nowhere mostly is not. A local couple I met walking their dog on the road told me it was built for a royal visit to Iqaluit (the Queen has been there twice, in 19, and other royal family members have been there on other occasions), so the Queen could see the tundra so close to the city. The most convincing one I heard (including from the city's visitor centre) is that the road was built for a planned new city dump, which was belatedly canceled when someone pointed out it might not be a good idea to put the dump upstream from the city's fresh water supply. ![]() There are conflicting stories on why the Road to Nowhere was built in the first place. I came across an online report from another tourist who in July 2011 photographed a Road to Nowhere street sign in the wild, which matches the above sign and is consistent with the few Iqaluit street blades I saw on other major roads. As the brochure warned might happen, I wasn't able to find the sign in the wild. ^ This photo, from the city's tourist brochure, shows how the Road to Nowhere was once signed (in both English and Inuktitut, an Inuit language), and might still be if people didn't keep stealing the signs. I'll make one more stop in Nunavut, before I fly back home. I'm right now on my way out of Rankin Inlet, which was much less interesting than Iqaluit. It's short (about 3.3 km, plus a reported 0.8 km built but closed to motor traffic) but scenic, taking you quickly away from civilization into the treeless tundra that covers most of the region.īTW, I'll post a more comprehensive Nunavut "road trip" report, once I'm done with Nunavut. ![]() ![]() While visiting Iqaluit, Nunavut for a few days earlier this week, I took a rental SUV on the city's officially-named "Road to Nowhere".
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