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IQALUIT -When Bruce and Gerri Mulley moved to Iqaluit in 1997, they looked at it as a camping trip: if they couldn't find something, they'd make do without it.

But while that plan seemed OK on paper, it quickly began to crumble.

Bruce and Gerri Mulley began their company, I SHOP 4U, as a convenient way for Nunavut residents to order and receive items from the south, but they also wanted to provide their son, who suffers from schizophrenia, with an opportunity to make a life for himself - photo courtesy of I SHOP 4U

"I couldn't buy a bra up there," said Gerri. "It was quite something to move in there and realize just how outposted you are.

"Within a week, I needed a pair of shoelaces and I couldn't get a pair in Iqaluit. I had to walk around with a piece of twine tying up my shoe."

The Mulleys stayed four years. They currently live in Ottawa, but their connection to Iqaluit and the rest of Nunavut remains strong.

In 2004, the couple started their business, I SHOP 4U, out of their own home.

The concept is simple: the Mulleys take orders from people living in Nunavut, go on shopping trips in Ottawa to collect the items from various stores and finally ship the goods North either by sealift or plane, charging store prices plus a service fee for the time spent gathering the orders.

Unless customers have a preference, the sealifts, which are reserved for larger orders, are split between Nunavut Eastern Arctic Shipping and Nunavut Sealink and Supply Inc., while goods shipped by plane are parcelled out between First Air and Canadian North.

In 2008, I SHOP 4U processed 324 orders; of those, 86 were sent up by sealift, the rest by airmail.

About three quarters of orders go to Iqaluit, with Pangnirtung, Pond Inlet and Qikiktarjuaq also generating significant business.

"We almost double the number of people every year," said Gerri.

The single most requested item is pop, and with the exception of Javex and Bounce - which risk contaminating other items - the Mulleys have never turned down a request.

And there have been some strange requests. Take the order for 40 pounds of Kentucky bluegrass seed, or another request from Pond Inlet for what Gerri described as "a ladies' feminine ultra-sensitive napkin that is made in Egypt."

"We just finished up a grocery order from Costco including probably $1,500 worth of beer and wine. Overall it was a $6,000 to $7,000 sealift order," she said.

Whether or not the Mulleys realized it at the time, the business got its unofficial start during their residence in Iqaluit, when Bruce worked as an RCMP pilot flying people and goods all over the NWT and Nunavut.

The job made him very popular with friends.

"I would often get requests for anything and everything," said Bruce. "If I was going to Yellowknife, (people would say), 'Could you pick up a case of beer?'"

The requests kept coming in even after Bruce was transferred by the RCMP from Iqaluit to Ottawa, where he and Gerri have been living since 2001.

When someone wanting a large shipment of arts supplies offered to pay them to scavenge, Gerri and Bruce, who are both in their mid-50s, decided to make a business out of it.

"One of the first requests we got - we still laugh about it - was a guy who wanted the little drive belt on a power rotor for a vacuum cleaner," said Bruce. "They were only 20 bucks ... he wanted four or five of these rubber bands. I remember saying, 'How much are we going to charge him?'"

Beth Beattie, an interior designer in Iqaluit, splits on a sealift order with three friends every summer, ordering groceries in bulk.

Unsatisfied with the eight weeks it sometimes takes for items to ship from IKEA, Beattie also frequently orders decorating items by airmail.

"Gerri can pick it up and I get it in three days," said Beattie.

When Beattie travels to Ottawa, she revels in the experience of trying on clothes and sizing up products first-hand, but leaves the nitty-gritty of transporting goods to I SHOP 4U.

"(They) pick it all up, put in my sealift and I don't have to cart it back to my hotel and figure out how to get it on the plane," she said.

While providing a new supply mechanism for Nunavut residents was the idea fuelling I SHOP 4U, the reason the Mulleys moved forward with their business was much more personal.

The same year the couple moved out of Iqaluit, their son, Christopher, was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 25.

Christopher, now 32, quit his Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Regina when he initially began experiencing symptoms, moving in with his parents.

"When I first got ill, I sat in my parents' basement for a year," said Christopher. "I barely wanted to go out at all, not even for a walk. It almost reduces you to the point of being a child. It takes away so many skills that you've learned, social skills. "

"He wasn't functioning well because his illness was forcing him to have little motivation," said Gerri, who felt powerless to do anything about her son - until she thought of I SHOP 4U.

"Everything said that people rebound better when they have a support system that provides motivation and stimulus," she added.

When the request for arts supplies came up, Gerry suggested Christopher do the shopping - which provided him with the social interaction he needed.

"It became something that was enjoyable not only because I was getting paid for it, but because I felt like I was doing something worthwhile," said Christopher, who's now the principal shopper for the business.

When Bruce and Gerri were first grappling with Christopher's condition, they joined a support group that held dinners at members' houses every month. Through that group, they eventually made contact with other people with disabilities who expressed an interest in working for the company.

Besides Christopher, I SHOP 4U employs three other people with disabilities, including Greg Beers, who has a learning disability, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder as well as what he calls "a severe anger problem."

Like Christopher, Beers is a shopper and packer.

"It relaxes me," he said of the job. "At the end of the day, I feel good about myself. You can't just sit there day after day on ODSP (Ontario Disability Support Program) and do nothing."

With Christopher now fully-employed and thriving and the number of orders to smaller Nunavut communities growing, Bruce and Gerri are now setting their next goal: expanding I SHOP 4U to the NWT.

"We have talked with an individual who lives in Edmonton (who's) interested in operating the same type of business from the western side," said Bruce.

"(He'll) buy the rights to use the name."

Although the business has received requests from several NWT consumers, Bruce added he doesn't want to rush into anything.

"It's a big step to go through," he said. "A service-oriented business may be a bit harder to get off the ground now."