![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldNunavut's MP and officials from the Northwest Company went into damage control mode Tuesday after photos of expensive food at a Northern Store in Arctic Bay caused outrage in the North and awe in the South.
Among the items pictured were a $13 bag of spaghetti, a $29 jar of Cheez Whiz, a $77 bag of breaded chicken and a $38 bottle of cranberry juice.
David Anderson, the manager of major market stores for the Northwest Co., told a meeting of Baffin mayors in Iqaluit that prices on those items went up when the supply shipped last summer by sealift ran out.
"When they reordered the product by air, the new rate kicked in, which resulted in a price increase," he said.
Anderson said the Northwest Co. will try to ship larger quantities of items that aren't subsidized by Nutrition North Canada via sealift in an effort to control price increases.
But it will be a challenge. Nutrition North Canada subsidizes shipping on a much smaller list of healthy foods, such as fruits and vegetables, than the old food mail program.
"There's approximately 2,700 items that will not (be) eligible under the (new) program," Anderson said. "This will include things like ice cream, products like Cheez Whiz, spices."
But he said the Northwest Co. backs Nutrition North and promised Nunavut customers will see a drop in prices of "healthy-living product" when the new program kicks in April 1.
Leona Aglukkaq, Nunavut's MP and the federal health minister, said "misinformation that's out there" is to blame for people attacking Nutrition North for food price increases, when the program hasn't started yet.
The Arctic Bay prices shown in the photos "have nothing to do with Nutrition North Canada," Aglukkaq said.
Complaints about the price of foods not covered by Nutrition North should go directly to retailers, she said.
Quttiktuq member of legislature Ron Elliott, who distributed the photos of Arctic Bay groceries through his email list, said he'll wait until the new program starts April 1 before he passes judgment.
"If the prices do go down, I'll be the first to stand up and applaud," he said.
But Elliott said the remote High Arctic is always going to face high food prices because of the region's small population and distance from major transportation hubs.
"Naturally prices are going to be higher . . . but there's a breaking point and you just wonder where that breaking point is when prices are as high as they are in Arctic Bay," he said.
When Liz Hanson walked into her local Yukon grocery store on Saturday, she found the shelves bereft of beef.
The only meat she could find? “Three little packages of poultry,” she said. “And you’re thinking, ‘there’s something wrong with this picture, when your supplies can’t be maintained.’”
In Whitehorse, where Ms. Hanson was recently elected as MLA and now serves as leader of the territorial NDP, such a sight is not rare. She said mounting difficulties with northern food logistics are shining a spotlight on how Canada’s most distant communities feed themselves, especially in times of crisis and during periods when energy prices soar.
“It is a growing problem, at least in my observation,” she said. “If there’s a snowstorm or a breakdown of a vehicle or anything that happens on a highway and the trucks don’t come in, there’s no food in the store. And it becomes a running joke.”
[. . .]
In the Northwest Territories and Yukon, food questions are thornier because history suggests these territories, cold and isolated as they may be, are capable of growing substantial amounts of their own food. In decades past, missionary priests and workers at isolated posts tilled large, productive gardens. The Dawson gold rush, which swelled the Yukon population to a size near current levels, was largely fed by local product.
“We could have an industry that could support about a third to 40 per cent of Yukon’s food needs, rather than perhaps the 1 per cent to 2 per cent that we currently supply,” said Rick Tone, executive director of the Yukon Agricultural Association.
The latest figures show the entire Yukon is home to a quantity of farm animals that could be contained on a single southern farm: 220 cattle, 160 hogs, 62 elk, 130 goats and sheep, 150 wood bison and 21 llamas.
To encourage more agriculture, Mr. Tone’s association has laid plans for an abattoir, cold storage and kitchen operation that could be used by small-time community farmers. But erecting that $2-million facility has not been easy. It has been discussed in various forms since 1972 but never built, although the territory does subsidize a mobile abattoir.
In part, that’s because agriculture remains a very tough sell in the North. In Yukon, for example, land prices exceed those in places such as Saskatchewan, and yields are far lower. A government program launched in 1988 studied how to grow wheat, peas, oilseeds and raspberries. But growing conditions aren’t good. The number of frost-free days ranges from 93 in some places to 21 in others. The soil is generally poor and nutrient-deficient.
With this in mind, talk of the population of Arctic Canada--northern Canada generally--growing substantially seems a bit overwrought. Without food, what could be done? The existing population seems badly off enough.
