Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jun 14/99) - Many of the people working in the hotels and tourist centres of the North spend much of their time giving good answers to, to put it nicely, not-so-intelligent questions.

Mona Belleau said the strangest questions asked of Nunavut Tourism come from tourists scouting the scene by phone.

"They will say 'I'm coming up there in July. Do I have to bring my fur coat?' I'm like, 'I don't think soooo.'"

Over in the Kitikmeot, Lisa Taylor said bears are on the minds of a lot of guests they get at Cambridge Bay's Arctic Islands Lodge.

"Most of them want to know where are all the polar bears and do they attack people."

Taylor can't help but let out a good-natured chuckle every time she hears that question -- "I've been here 30 years and I haven't seen one.

"Most people don't understand that polar bears are migratory animals and follow specific routes," said Taylor. "They just think this is the North and they're all over."

The second most common question, said Taylor is, "How come you guys live in houses and not iglus?"

Sleep deprivation is also a part of life for uninitiated visitors to the land of the midnight sun.

Camellia Gray of the Inuvik Visitors Centre said the most common question she's been asked by tourists this year is, "Are you used to the day-light hours?"

Gray tries to comfort the weary travellers.

"It takes a few weeks to get used to," said the lifelong resident. It's about this time each year she starts getting used to entering dreamland while the sun is shining.

Any entrepreneur looking to make some fast money during the summer in Inuvik would do well to offer those masks people put over their eyes to block out the light when they sleep.

Apparently, they're hard to come by, though Gray said a lady in Tuktoyaktuk has, in the past, done a brisk business in decorated hand-made versions.

Fort Smith's visitor's centre, which is open 12 hours a day and supplies both showers and drinking water to visitors, is a model others in the North would do well to emulate. According to Irene Landry, the tourists they get are also worthy of emulation.

No funny questions here: What kind of fish are there? Where can we see the whooping cranes and pelicans? What is there to see and do in the area? Why is the town called the Garden Capital?

Why is the town called the Garden Capital?

"We have a lot of flowers around."

Oh. And how about those polar bears...