Rental Car Return
Before heading to the airport to return our rental car, we filled up at the nearest gas station. We ended up driving 128km around town. Gas was more reasonable than expected at $1.63 per litre and we spent less than $25 on gas.



We parked our rental car in the rental car area beside the terminal. Driving Force’s airport kiosk was unstaffed. As their main location is a 40 minute walk away, we followed the instructions to slide the key under their office door. We also called them to let them know that the car had been returned and they promised the final receipt that evening or for early the next morning (spoiler, it was not). During a walk outside the airport 90 minutes later, we saw that the return had been picked up and driven away by then.



Up to this point, we would have wholeheartedly recommended renting from Driving Force. Unfortunately, their customer service afterwards left a lot to be desired. We tried emailing to request the receipt the next day, but it returned as undeliverable. Almost 48 hours after dropoff and right before trying to call them, we received the final receipt by email. The invoice had errors for records such as time and mileage, as well as an $840 damage charge for “unit returned with damages sustained to right front bumper cover”. We had numerous photos and videos of the car at dropoff and could not see damage. After emailing the branch twice for information of the damage without response, we are currently forced to use a credit card dispute/insurance to handle the matter.

Iqaluit Airport
After dropping off our rental car, we had over 4 hours until our flight. It was by far the last flight of the evening. We did not have any plans to venture back into town and therefore spent the time at the airport. In the landside area, there is one restaurant, Tundra Take-out Diner, and a small shop. The restaurant and shop seem to generally close by 6pm, well before our 8:35pm flight. On this day, there was a network issue at the airport and both stores could not accept credit or debit payments. The network issue also affected the ATM. As such, numerous groups of people were unable to purchase anything as they did not have cash on hand.





We ended up strolling around the airport grounds. While Canadian North is by far the main passenger airline at YFB, many other airlines are also present. We spotted a Twin Otter of Kenn Borek Air and a fuel truck of Air Nunavut. We also saw Cargojet routinely fly into YFB.







At 5pm, we were allowed to check in. The Canadian North agent was surprised that we only had one checked bag. As we brought a lot of food and other items to Iqaluit, we were actually flying back 18lb lighter and with one less bag. YFB appears to have 2 gate areas. We heard that flights within the North do not have a security check. Our flight back to YOW was located within the gate 1-3 area, which did require going through security. Airside, there is a lone store with souvenirs/convenience items and some vending machines. Most of the prices at the vending machine are not much different from most airports. The store was still open as we began boarding our flight. There were plentiful washrooms and electric plugs airside.







5T104 YFB-YOW
At checkin, the agent assigned us an aisle and window seat, with the middle seat remaining empty. Our plane for the evening had been swapped from a 737-400 combi to a 737-700, registration C-FHNF. Therefore, the plane was relatively empty as it had gone from 78 seats to 138 seats. Boarding was once again not using a jetbridge. We were almost done boarding quite early, but we had to wait for one last passenger. The 737-700 was much more modern and offered USB charging.





Between waiting for the last passenger and deicing, we took off just about on time. After 45 minutes in the air, we were becoming worried. The plane had just been flying with the lights dimmed. We were hungry and a meal service seemed questionable. Eating another granola bar or doing a midnight McDonald’s drive thru meal in Ottawa was not appetizing. The announcement of inflight service quelled our fears. On this flight, we were offered hot (lukewarm) meals and a choice between chicken parmesan or a vegetarian pasta. As well, the drinks service had alcoholic options, whereas the flight to Iqaluit didn’t appear to have any. We happily finished our meals and waited for the lights to be dimmed. Instead, the drinks cart was shortly rolled back out. On top of that, dessert was handed out in an aluminum foil pouch. It turned out to be a decadent and very warm chocolate chip cookie, 100% chewy, no crunch. Our meal fears were unfounded and the plane had turned into an in-air Crumbl.





We touched down into Ottawa slightly early after a 3 hour flight. Our bag came out faster than at YFB. At the YOW National rental desk, we were offered a Mercedes on a fullsize car reservation. After politely declining, we were given a Mazda CX-90 GS-L.



Conclusion
We were initially worried about visiting only Iqaluit on this trip. The city doesn’t seem to have the best reputation online and we were worried about not making the most out of a trip to Nunavut. However, we found the potential tradeoffs to be worth it. Iqaluit seems to have much better infrastructure and amenities than other communities in the territory. We appreciated the accommodation options, lower chance of flight disruptions, choice of restaurants, more sights, and lower costs. Looking online, a $400+ per night hotel in other communities is very different to that available in Iqaluit. We had seen almost everything that we had set out to see, and Iqaluit was a great introduction to very Northern Canada.