You don't see one of these every day in Iqaluit.  It is an EADS 'Warszawa - Okecie' S.A. PZL-104MA Wilga 2000.  Quite a powerful, multipurpose aircraft.  Built in Poland by PZL,  they're used for everything from towing gliders, to training, to border patrol.  The Canadian Air Cadet program had purchased one PZL-104MA, and was planning to buy more, but EADS is apparently no longer making it.

Back in 2008, The Great Arctic Air Adventure completed a circumnavigation of Canada, which included a trip to the North Magnetic Pole,  by float plane.  That’s not something you see up here everyday… visit their site for photos, videos and more. The trip took off from the west Coast, travelled through the Yukon and Northwest Territories, and visited a number of Nunavut communties, including Cambridge Bay, Coral Harbour and Resolute Bay before returning south via the Nunavik region of Northern Quebec. The float equipped deHavilland Beaver would have reminded some of the older arctic residents of the kind of planes that found their way north in the 1940s to 1960s.

Now, their adventure has been documented in a TV special airing on PBS.  Details, including the video trailer, are available here.

Matt Hyde dropped by Iqaluit in August of 2007 on a trip from Seattle, Washington to Baffin Island in his 1973 Cessna 182P.   Matt met us at the fuel station at CYFB. He dropped by at the same time as Indian Air Force pilots Rahul Monga and Anil Kumar. At the time,  Monga and Kumar were two thirds of the way through their record-breaking trip around the world.

Matt took some spectacular photos on his Baffin Island trip, including flying through the Aksayuk Pass near Pangnirtung, some great photos of Auyuituq National Park, and more.

Ward Welvaert is a professional ferry pilot who has flown a number of single engine aircraft between North America and Europe, via CYFB-Iqaluit, CYVM- Qikiqtarjuaq, and Kuujjuaq.  His website provides information and photos about some of his services, and his blog site provides some recent trip reports, including this one on ferrying a Piper Seneca through Iqaluit to Europe.