IQALUIT - Turns out the easiest way to find commercial office space in Iqaluit is to ask a cab driver about it.

Dr. Felix Louis, a chiropractor who set up shop in Iqaluit last fall, has practised in Montreal for most of his professional career. - Emily Ridlington/NNSL photo

At least that's how Dr. Felix Louis - a Haitian-born chiropractor who opened shop in Nunavut's capital city last September - did it.

Louis, who has practised in Montreal for most of his professional career, travelled to Iqaluit last summer to scope the town out and decide if it was the ideal place to set up shop.

His search for an office proved difficult - so difficult, in fact, that he began to turn to local cab drivers for advice.

"I put (the word) out to a couple of taxi drivers, and the last day, as I was leaving, one taxi driver came and looked (for me) at my hotel and said, 'I found something for you,'" said Louis, laughing.

That wasn't the only fortuitous meeting that day. He also bumped into an acupuncturist who, as it happened, was packing up to leave town that day.

From her, he got all the encouragement he needed.

"What she told me is that there's a great need for chiropractic care - actually, for all kinds of health care," he said. "In the whole territory, there is no musculoskeletal specialist."

Chiropractors specialize in managing and manipulating the neuro-musculoskeletal system without using medicines or surgery, placing emphasis on the spine.

Before Louis arrived, he said, residents often had to wait between four months to a year to receive physiotherapy from a visiting specialist.

Since he opened last fall, the flow of patients to his office - one half of the building also housing Nunavut Hair Studio 2001 & Tanning - has been "fairly busy."

But not as busy as he'd hoped.

For one thing, though Government of Nunavut workers - a hefty portion of Iqaluit's working population - have insurance covering visits to a chiropractor (80 per cent per visit, $500 in total a year) the cost of living up North means the number of visits they can take is limited compared to workers in the south.

"They have insurance provided, but because the cost of living is pretty high, it doesn't cover a lot of treatments," he said.

He also hasn't seen as many Inuit patients as he would like, a fact he attributes to the lack of coverage for chiropractic visits under Health Canada's Non-Insured

Health Benefits for uninsured First Nations members.

"I think they can really benefit from the care because the traditional way of living makes it very hard on the spine ... And also, carrying babies on the back."

Louis is also trying to establish closer ties to Baffin Regional Hospital so that, for instance, he can obtain X-rays previously performed on his patients.

"I'm (also) hoping to get more patients from the (Workers' Safety and Compensation Committee."

So what originally brought the doctor to Iqaluit, anyway?

A hunger to visit the Arctic, as it turns out.

As co-founder of Chiropractors Without Borders, Louis travelled to Haiti, Bolivia and Ecuador for two weeks per visit, giving out free care to thousands of patients.

He always wanted to extend the program to the North, but the tremendous cost prevented him.

While recalling how shocked he was by the price of his summer 2010 return ticket to Iqaluit, Louis said of the city, "I fell in love with it. I love the place."

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