Iqaluit, Canada: Unlikely Celebrity Hot Spot

All the stars go to Iqaluit: Foxx. Paltrow. Willis. Schwarzenegger. Banderas. The list goes on. And they go to the Arctic town of 6,500 on Canada’s Baffin Island for good reason: It’s where celebrities and politicians traveling between Los Angeles and Europe stop to fuel their private jets. “We’re a gas station,” Eric Leuthold, who runs Frobisher Bay Touchdown Services, told the Washington Post’s Doug Struck. “Some of the stars don’t even know where they are. They wake up groggy and ask where they are, and never come out of the jets.”

Struck continues:

Others are more curious, drawn perhaps by the striking Inuit art in the airport terminal or the Inuktitut language they hear at the airport. They stay longer to explore the snow-covered streets, buzzing with skimobiles.

Glenn Craig was doing his daily one-man routine as radio host, manager, producer and ad salesman for the town’s radio station, CKIQ, when Sammy Hagar, a former Van Halen band member, called from the airport. Hagar, en route from Ireland, said he was shocked to hear his own song in the Arctic. Craig promptly put him on the air for a live interview.

And some come seeking an Arctic adventure.

Brooke Shields always wanted to spend a night in an igloo. It had to be made for her; the local residents live in modern housing.

 

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