Clients had to resort to getting cash from breathing tellers after a break-in about 4 a.m. only succeeded in breaking the automated teller bank machine.

"I don't think people realize it's like a big steel vault," says Celia White, manager of the Iqaluit bank branch. "Even if they got to the bank machine (through the display front), they'd never get into it," White says.

Police aren't saying much about the break-in on a request from the bank not to discuss details about the robbery.

But residents in the same building were wakened by a man attempting to get at the bank from a side door. Problem is, that door only leads to the residences, not the bank.

The machine was ready to spit out cash to customers by the end of the week.