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Eskimo Point Lumber Supply is building the 28-room Katimavik Suites Hotel in Rankin Inlet, with completion scheduled for December and the intention to open in January. - Tim Edwards/NNSL photo

RANKIN INLET
With the economic outlook on the upside in Rankin Inlet, an Arviat-based company has decided to take its successful hotel venture outside its home community.

Katimavik Suites Hotel is setting up shop in Rankin Inlet, adding to its three existing Katimavik Suites locations in Arviat.

"We saw an opportunity to expand our business and we decided to expand into Rankin Inlet," said Ryan St. John, vice-president of Arviat's Eskimo Point Lumber Supply, the owners and operators of Katimavik Suites.

"It's a busy place. It's the transportation hub of our region, there's the proposed Meliadine mine - generally, Rankin's just always busy and we just felt that there was an opportunity there for us to open a Katimavik hotel location."

The hotel is being built by Sanaqatiit Construction Ltd., and is due to be finished by mid-December and open early to mid-January. It will feature 18 standard rooms and 10 suites, and an 800-square-foot, fully-equipped meeting room.

"We will have a combination of suites with kitchenettes, executive suites with kitchens, studio rooms without kitchenettes," St. John said.

St. John said there will be common kitchens on both of the hotel's floors, fully-equipped with stoves, fridges, freezers, pots, pans and other such kitchen standards.

Satellite TV, wireless Internet and laundry facilities will be available for guests, said St. John, as well as "a couple other things, but I'll keep that close to my chest for now."

Eskimo Point Lumber operates a general store and a convenience store in Arviat, in addition to buying, packaging and shipping goods north from its marshalling yard in Winnipeg; cargo-handling services; heavy equipment contracting; managing commercial and residential properties; and managing Arviat's three Katimavik Suites locations, with 18 rooms between them.

"We do a little bit of everything," said St. John.

Nanuq Suites opened this year with 16 rooms. Owner Jack Hickes told Kivalliq News at the time that the success of hotels in Rankin may very well be married to the success of Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd.'s Meliadine gold project, and if the mine goes ahead the hamlet will need every room it can get.

Rankin Inlet is also host to two other hotels, operated by the Kissarvik Co-op - the 50-room Siniktarvik Hotel and Conference Centre and the 22-room Turaarvik Inn. Siniktarvik was bought by the co-op about five years ago due to the success of Turaarvik.

With the activity surrounding Meliadine, which includes exploration and an all-weather road being built to the site from the hamlet, St. John said his company sees a need for more rooms in Rankin.

"We're going to offer a brand-new facility. It's going to be well-designed and it's going to be a very nice hotel," said St. John. "Are we going to see a chain of hotels? Possibly, but we're going to take it one step at a time."

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