Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Aug 14/00) - You can tell a newcomer in the food section of a Nunavut store a mile away. It's the slack-jawed look they get when they eyeball the price of a two-litre carton of milk for the first time.

The catatonic gaze persists as they push their cart up the aisle and discover the price of avocados, capers and refined sugar.

Welcome to Nunavut, surely the most expensive place to shop for food in Canada.

Granted, costs are high because most things that end up on the table have to be flown or shipped in. That jacks up the prices and turns grocery shoppers -- at least those concerned with pinching their pennies -- into serious comparative buyers.

Take Mike Gardener, for example. A resident of Nunavut for about the last 45 years, Gardener has more than a few tricks up his shopping sleeves.

He hits at least one of Iqaluit's three grocery stores every day or every second day. He said the key to stretching his dollar is finding out which vendor has the best price.

He has found that the stores will sell the very same item at a very different price on different days.

"We don't expect (prices) to be southern prices. We expect them to be higher, but we shouldn't have to put up with the idea that this is what it costs in the North," said Gardener.

"There should be a consumer advocacy group. They could be the watchdog. It's hard to get through all of this," he said.

Gardener said he would like to see the group create something he called a weekly food basket.

"Someone would go around once a week at an unannounced time and compare the prices of items that are commonly used by people. Items like a five-pound bag of potatoes, a litre of gas and flour," said Gardener.

He said local prices could be compared to Yellowknife and southern prices to show shoppers what they were being charged in comparison to other places and whether or not Nunavut stores were unfairly hiking their prices up. Gardener said the results could be published in local newspapers to ensure they were made as public as possible.

"A lot could be done for the community by having a weekly food basket. The service needs to be done," he said.

Gardener, who does support local stores but also orders from the south and places an annual sealift order, added that the advocacy group could monitor the packaging dates on items to ensure consumers were sold fresh products.

Marty Kulugutuq also has an interest in fresh products, but has a hard time getting them in Grise Fiord. Because a direct flight from Iqaluit only lands once a week, it can be tough to buy produce that is still edible.

"On Wednesday, the plane comes in direct. On Thursday morning when the Co-op opens, we scramble to get the fresh produce. You sort of have to line up to get the best ones," said Kulugutuq.

"Unfortunately, it comes in spoiled sometimes," he said.

And with just one store in which to shop -- the Grise Fiord Inuit Co-op -- Kulugutuq said the High Arctic shopping experience had less to do with price watching than in more southerly locations.

"You're asking the wrong person about prices," said Kulugutuq. "We don't really pay attention because where else are we going to get it?"

Alternative shopping methods include purchasing items on trips to the south or ordering on the sealift, but Kulugutuq said the latter ends up backfiring in the end because money that isn't spent at the community-owned Co-op doesn't circulate back into Grise Fiord.

It goes instead, into the pockets of outside businesses.

"We end up shooting ourselves in the foot," he said.

Shopping isn't much better in Kitikmeot.

Violet Noksana of Cambridge Bay, who has lived and grocery shopped everywhere from Tuktoyaktuk to Inuvik, Iqaluit and now the Kitikmeot, said her present home has the highest prices she's seen to date.

"Stuff is more expensive here," said Noksana, of the hamlet's two options for food shopping.

Consumers also have to deal with items being unavailable when the stock runs out, a reality that is particularly bad at the moment.

"It's been worse lately because we're waiting for the barge to come in," said Noksana, who personally spent a few thousand dollars on a sealift order. That means she should be able to spend less time browsing the aisles in local stores for at least part of the year.

"I ordered the regular dried goods and cans and flour," she said.