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Greenhouses a Growing Trend in the Arctic
In this tiny community at the southern tip of Baffin Island, a few hundred kilometers (miles) from the Arctic Circle, beans, lettuce, carrots, tomatoes and herbs seem to be thriving in 20 plots under a steel-frame glass enclosure.
It is the first greenhouse to be built in Iqaluit, and only the second in the North. Both have survived Arctic blizzards.
Cold frames are also popping up in backyards throughout the region.
In 2005, the townsfolk of Inuvik, Northwest Territories, converted an old hockey arena into a plot to grow vegetables.
Here, the 75-member Iqaluit Greenhouse Society had planned to build a similarly massive multi-million-dollar bio-dome on the rocky, wind-swept island tundra, but lack of funding stalled the project.
In the interim, the group built a modest greenhouse for 150,000 dollars last year to test what would grow north of the 60th parallel. Its premiere growing season kicked off in June.
"We hope to learn what we can grow in northern communities, to help us become more self-reliant," said Mary Ellen Thomas of the Nunavut Research Institute, which backed the project.
Importing food to Canada's far north by air freight is very expensive, and then keeping it fresh in cold storage requires much electricity.
At the local grocer, imported fresh fruits and vegetables are sold at quadruple the prices of produce in Toronto, Canada's largest metropolis, thousands of kilometers (miles) to the south.
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