Ask the time in Nunavut and you're asking for trouble.
Just ask the territorial government. Yesterday it made its third change in 13 months to the way Nunavut sets its clocks, in an effort to finally end debate over something that was supposed to help unite the far-flung region.
The trouble began when the government decided that unifying Nunavut's clocks would bring the territory's people together as well. On Oct. 31, 1999, everyone along a 2,000-kilometre stretch of the Arctic was to switch to Central Standard Time, the zone used by Iqaluit.
Three time zones were to be collapsed into one. It was as if everywhere between Edmonton and Montreal ran on Winnipeg time.
Some communities, faced with a two-hour adjustment to their clocks and their way of life, refused. The municipal councils of Kugluktuk in the northwest corner and Pangnirtung on the east coast of Baffin Island both rejected the change.
The government, however, refused to back down. It told its employees that no matter where they worked, they would do it by the clocks ticking in Iqaluit.
"It made a separation in our community," Kugluktuk Mayor Joanne Taptuna said.
Schools were on Central Time, businesses were on Mountain Time. Territorial offices had been open for two hours when municipal employees were sipping their first morning cups of coffee.
Last summer, a compromise was reached after Justice Minister Jack Anawak sent out 150 letters to municipal councils and polled 500 residents by telephone.
Nunavut was to stick with Central Time, but wouldn't change its clocks in the spring and fall.
"That puts half the year on the same time as Ottawa and the rest of the year same as Winnipeg," said government spokeswoman Annette Bourgeois from Iqaluit.
Pangnirtung has accepted the solution, administrative officer Rita Mike said. The community just set its clocks back an hour as normal when the rest of the territory didn't.
"We remained on Eastern Time and the rest of Nunavut caught up with us," she said.
Kugluktuk, however, remained unhappy. So, yesterday the government announced that Kugluktuk and Cambridge Bay would be the only two communities that continue to change their clocks in the spring and fall.
"[We]accepted the compromise because we had to get the people back together," Ms. Taptuna said.
The government is relieved the whole exercise is over, spokeswoman Annette Bourgeois said. The uniform time zone will help Nunavut's increasingly decentralized bureaucracy stay in touch. But after more than a year of wrangling over how to set the clocks, Ms. Mike is in no doubt about what time it is.
"It's time to move on," she said.