Maria Canton
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Oct 16/00) - The first time Ann Hanson slept in what is now her family home, it was in a tent she helped pitch in the middle of a then-abandon fishing lodge at the Bay of Two Rivers.

That lodge was one of three A-frame houses that served as sleeping quarters and a cookhouse for an all but forgotten fishing retreat that operated in the late 1950s.

The tourist destination was called Chartic Lodge -- a play on char and arctic -- and it changed hands several times until the 1960s when long-time resident Bill Mackenzie acquired it.

"I had plans to re-open the camp, I even had stationery, a name and a logo -- I was going to call it Ikalaudjuak Arctic Camp," said Mackenzie.

But Mackenzie's plans died as his frustration with vandals grew, leading to the selling of all three triangular houses.

"People were always staying in them, camping and what not, which I didn't mind as long as they didn't ruin anything, but there was so much wanton vandalism," he said.

"What really killed me was when I went out there on the Easter weekend in '72 and all of the cabins were full and a guy was on the balcony sawing the wood to use for firewood. I hauled the wood stove out of the building and kicked everyone out right then and there."

Discouraged, Mackenzie gave up on his dream to promote tourism in the area and decided to sell.

"John Webster came to me wanting to buy the first one, he was a real go-getter," said Mackenzie.

"It only took a couple of weeks for him and his friends to dismantle the building and take it into town."

After Webster made several snowmobile trips across 28 miles of sea ice hauling 24 foot A-frames and plywood, his brother Thomas Webster decided to buy the second house.

"We were pretty young back then and fit for anything and we needed places to live," said Thomas Webster, who still lives in his A-frame that he acquired in 1975. His brother has since left town.

It was only a couple of years later that Ann and Bob Hanson, who were living in government housing, decided to buy the last and largest of the A-frames.

"It was so hard to have any individuality when you lived in government housing -- everyone's house was exactly the same, the only thing that was different were the people inside," said Ann Hanson, whose house faces the direction of the original camp.

"It took us nine trips by snowmobile to bring the frames and plywood across the ice and we had so much help from friends."

Hanson remembers being at the fishing lodge when the cabins were still new with white pine furniture and wood stoves.

When their family of six moved into the house in December of 1978, the white pine furniture was long gone, but they finally had the freedom government housing never afforded.

"We were happy to have our own house that wasn't exactly the same as everyone else's and we could decorate and renovate whenever we wanted," she said.

"The first time we pitched a tent in the cabin, at the Bay of Two Rivers, I never thought that I would end up buying the house."

Despite the fate of Chartic Lodge, the camp still has a breath of life that is found in the original A-frames now standing in Iqaluit and Apex.