Food prices in Nunavut

[pne]

Food prices in Nunavut (in Arctic Canada) are legendarily high, because pretty much everything that’s not “country food” (traditional local food such as seal, berries, etc.) is imported by air from the south.

Here’s a blog post that includes a flyer from a local supermarket, showing what sale prices are like in Baker Lake (Qamani'tuaq, ᖃᒪᓂᑦᑐᐊᖅ).

Those of you from other parts of Canada may wish to compare the prices (especially for the small variety of fresh produce) with what you pay at your local supermarket; those of you from other places will have to do currency conversion (and possibly purchasing-power-parity adjustments).

Comments

[mummimamma]

This is actually one of those things that I notice a clear difference on. When I was younger, fruits and vegetables clearly had seasons. Of course you could get imported apples and pears out of season, but they tasted like cardboard, but were infinitely more expensive. Oranges came in orange season and then we ate like crazy. Bananas were in season all year though.

Strange foreign things like kiwis and pineapple were just that strange and foreign. Occasionally we'd get one, and it was a rare treat. I can actually remember the first time had non-hermetic pineapple, what a wonder that was! It wasn't the sweet and sticky thing I'd previously thought (a missionary had brought it from I cannot remember where).

But in the last 20 years, things have changed, the selection has exploded; imports on are more common, comes faster and is more varied - and is cheaper. But still, if you go outside the big cities, the selection can be smaller, although that might depend on the grocer - and the customers.

I think also there are some price leveling done from the side of the government, so that even the people in the north can eat fairly cheap fruit and veggies (also on milk, because everybody needs milk according to the state). More exotic fruits are probably outside this, but food prices are fairly uniform all over Norway.

that said, when I was in the Faeroes some years ago, it was like going 20 years back in time in terms of selection of fruits and vegetables, except potatoes, carrots and rhubarb, ie everything they needed to import from Denmark/Norway/UK. There was less of it, and it was more expensive. I clearly remember a sign of "Any four fruits, only 20 kr" (about 2,50 euro). A bit on the expensive side for a Norwegian, but not shamelessly so, but one of the German girls almost started crying becasue it was so expensive (she was also a vegetarian, which was ... interesting in a society where most vegetables needed to be imported).

[pne]

Yes, being a vegetarian in Nunavut is probably also not fun.

And I imagine that historically, there have not been many vegetarian Inuit….

(The other way around, perhaps: there were probably some Inuit who derived most of their nutrition from animal flesh and had little, if any, plant matter directly contributing to their diet.)

[mummimamma]

Yes, being a vegetarian so far north would be a challenge indeed. Although if you eat fish you can be pretty okay, at least in the areas with fishing :)