IQALUIT - Jet engines roared and crowds "oohed" as the community of Iqaluit and the Canadian Forces collaborated Aug. 22 for the first Iqaluit air show.

Smoke trails streaming around them, three of the Canadian Forces Skyhawks skydivers are linked together in a complex arrangement of limbs, parafoils and national flag. - Gabriel Zarate/NNSL photo

"It's great to see the whole airport community working together like this," said John Graham, manager of Iqaluit Airport.

Graham said the airport has many of its own departments like those of the city such as maintenance and fire prevention and security, so in a sense it's like its own community. Seeing that community share itself with the larger city of Iqaluit was something, he said.

Graham said originally the purpose of the air show had been to recognize the 100th anniversary of the first powered flight in Canada.

"We thought we should do something to recognize the event, given that air travel is everything in the North," Graham said.

What had been conceived as a "low-key event" gained momentum with the participation of the Canadian Forces, including a performance by its Skyhawks demonstration parachute team.

Graham said volunteers at the gate to Apron 1 counted more than 600 people in the first hour of the show. He estimated by the end of the day there would be well over 1,500 people in attendance.

Seventeen military, civilian and government aircraft were open to inspection by curious visitors, many of whom had only seen the planes as they took off and landed.

"It's interesting," said Joanne Taptuna as she exited a massive CP-140 Aurora military plane. "If they were going to throw it away, I'd take it and make it a cabin."

The Aurora is a long-range patrol craft, complete with kitchen and dining quarters, bunks and a TV.

Many locally-based air companies also put their aircraft on display, from Canadian North's immense Boeing 737 to the tiniest exploratory Cessna.

A CF-18, the type of fighter jet currently in use by the Royal Canadian Air Force, was on display while two others conducted noisy fly-bys overhead.

The big show of the day was the demonstration jump by the Skyhawks. Exiting an airplane high above the airport, the Skyhawks assembled a number of unique formations as they plunged to earth, slowed by maple-leaf-flag parafoils.

Meanwhile at Nakasuk School, many children at the Community Day event for Operation Nanook sported grievous wounds with glee. Military makeup artists, who later used their skills to create fake wounds in the simulated mass-casualty emergency on Aug. 27, set kids up with fake bloody injuries to faces and limbs.

Canadian Forces also set up obstacle courses for children and barbecued hotdogs and hamburgers. Some of the Canadian Rangers from other parts of Nunavut served a seal soup they had prepared that morning. They also skinned and butchered a small seal on-site to be eaten raw.