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If Canada is becoming harder to find through the globalization of our cities, the winnowing of the CBC and the homogenization of our popular culture, it leans full-tilt in the treeless, rock-strewn city of Iqaluit, where ravens pepper the skies and huskies howl atop front-porch mountains of snow.

Snowmobiles outnumber cars, carrying families doorstep-to-doorstep with a ceaseless rumble, and the city's local classic rock radio station – 99.9 RAVEN ROCK – is one of the most interesting and hoser-centric radio stations I've ever heard, reaching for Edward Bear album tracks rather than AC/DC by rote.

If that's not enough, Iqaluit maintains a Canadian winterscape long after other provinces and territories turn green, allowing more than just a calendar flip for winter to cede its seasonal throne. It was minus 35 with the wind chill when we landed, at a time when the rest of the country was plunging its hands into the warm earth. (In June, average temperatures range from about zero to 5 C.)

The reason for my visit to Nunavut was Toonik Tyme, a music and sport festival to celebrate the end of long, dark days. It started in 1964 to increase tourism and to recognize the extinct Tuniit people (also known as the Dorsets), who were regarded as dashing and excellent hunters. This was reflected in the festival's programming, which featured a seal-skinning contest – sadly, cancelled because of bad weather – and Toonik Oomik, which saw a panel of experts pass judgment on the festival's prize-winning mustache. (Oomik is Inuktitut for mustache.)

Moving from event to event, I heard lots of grousing from locals about the severity of the weather. The city was beleaguered by the northern wind, which roars across Frobisher Bay and chills the spring sunshine. I was lucky, then, to have travelled north with my eight-year-old daughter, Cecilia, who often left me shivering at the roadside while she scaled snowbanks. With a lesser companion, I might have spent most of my time watching playoff hockey; instead, our days involved cold-weather games outside the Nakasuk school, watching hockey at the mostly Inuit Toonik Cup tournament, and being pulled by sled dogs across the frozen sea ice.

One evening, I enjoyed an excellent reprieve at the St. Jude's Parish Hall, where my daughter and I saw midnight after playing yarn and dice games with Inuit elders. In the newly cedared church, Cecilia met a 10-year-old girl from Rankin Inlet named Linda Howard, who was visiting her mother (Linda lived in Rankin with her grandma). She had never seen curls before, and after touring the ring-haired Cecilia around the room for friends and family, the two youngsters got to the job of becoming friends.

A lot of what we did in Iqaluit we did with Linda, who is Jordin Tootoo's cousin. We swam at the hotel pool (also the city's public aquatic facility), watched skijoring races (a combination of dog sledding and cross-country skiing) behind the museum, saw the Iqaluit Senators play the team from Pangnirtung, and attended a kids' karaoke session at the legion. There, Cecilia sang Goodbye Yellow Brick Road to a roomful of her new peers. Linda, for her part, performed Goodbye Earl by the Dixie Chicks, which is a song about an abused woman who kidnaps and kills her husband.

There were a few places I wanted to visit in Iqaluit that weren't on my daughter's list of funtastic destinations. One was the Grind N' Brew café, a little shed of a diner festooned with old licence plates and hockey memorabilia, including a shrine to the NHL's Nashville Predators' Tootoo. The Grind N' Brew is the kind of place where the menu is written on bristol board and the word “sandwhich” is misspelled. It's where locals gather to talk hockey and politics, natural subjects considering that one of the café's proprietors, Elisapee Sheutiapik, is Iqaluit's mayor, and the other, Brian Twerdin, is the coach of Iqaluit's senior hockey team. It's a fine place to eat cinnamon buns and read the newspaper for hours.

I also made a point of visiting the city's museum and art gallery, its showcases glittering with fine traditional and contemporary soapstone carvings. Behind the gallery, a breakwater gives way to the mouth of Frobisher Bay, and, before we left, I was determined to take Cecilia onto the sea ice, if only to say that we had.

On Sunday, we had heard about dogsled races being run on the heart of the bay, so, with the wind raging across six-foot frozen waves suspended in mid-crest, we tromped out across the ice toward a Canadian flagpole, which tilted with the wind and signified the race's finishing line. Snowmobiles sped past us as we buried our chins into our scarves and pressed on. Ahead there was only blurry whiteness and a handful of race officials huddled in the distance. When we finally reached them, the winning dog team was crouched and panting on the snow, their noses sickled with ice. The next group was not expected until hours later.

Cecilia said, “Dad, I'm so cold. How are we getting back to the road?” I broke the news that we were going to return the same way we had arrived. “Oh no,” she said, her heart sinking, cheeks burning red to white. Still, we turned and faced the shore, moving one frozen footstep after the other.

A few days earlier, my daughter had said: “Iqaluit looks just like Toronto!” Later in the hotel, she offered: “I thought it would be more different here. But they actually have TV shows in English, just like at home.” These thoughts had left me feeling a bit defeated.

But now, my reasons for having hauled my daughter to the Far North were justified. “Coming here, I realize how much we have at home,” she said, her feet crunching the snow, “and how little people have out here.” Crossing the deep blue ice of the bay, she knew it was possible to rise above the cold, and that, in Canada, there are a lot of different ways to live.

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Pack your bags

Getting there
First Air flies to Iqaluit from Ottawa and Montreal, and Canadian North from Ottawa.

When to go
Word to the wise: bring a coat. That said, the deep freeze of the winter and spring possesses its own beauty, while July and August – northern summer on the cusp of autumn – are gloriously colourful and warm.

Where to stay
Frobisher Inn 1-877-422-9422; www.frobisherinn.com. From $242 in summer.

Where to Eat
Grind N' Brew 867-979-0606.

What to do
The Alianait Festival (www.alianait.ca), with loads of bands and other fine entertainment, runs June 21 to July 1.

More information
www.nunavuttourism.com

Special to The Globe and Mail