My love of off-the-map adventures is well documented. Being able to throw a few necessities into a bag and head off running with no real destination is one of my favourite things in life these days, allowing me to live fully in the moment and emphasize the journey ahead with no expectations. While preparing for a recent August trip to Iqaluit, I read about the Road to Nowhere, a gravel road which leads several kilometers out of this remote town and through the barren tundra until it simply ends, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere. Now that sounded like fun.

For context, Iqaluit is Nunavut’s territorial capital city of about 8,000 people located on Baffin Island. It’s roughly 2,100 kilometers due north from Montreal, which requires a 3-hour flight on a Canadian North Boeing 737 over vast nothingness and increasingly rugged terrain to reach it. At approximately 63.7º north of latitude and about 200 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle, Iqaluit is on an even level with Nuuk, Greenland. Simply put, it’s way up there.

Isolation and harshness are the realities of life in Nunavut. The average temperature in Iqaluit ranges from almost -28ºC in January to about 8ºC in July. Vast distances separate the communities in Nunavut and there are no highways, and all transportation of people and goods requires a plane or perhaps a boat during the few weeks that ice recedes each summer. Disappearing off the map in Nunavut is relatively easy to do, because you’re already nowhere when you land.

As I happily set out for my run around Iqaluit and on the Road to Nowhere, the temperature was a balmy 7ºC. I headed up to the top of the hill overlooking the city to snap a few photos before turning towards the Apex (Niaqunngut in the local Inuktitut), a small community about 5 kilometers to the south of Iqaluit.

– Overlooking Iqaluit at the start of my run

– View down Paurngaq Crescent with Frobisher Bay in the background

The views on Niaqunngusiariaq (Road to Apex) were stunning in every direction and I remember thinking I was going to forget about the work I was in Iqaluit to complete that day and I would just keep running forever and never look back until I ran out of water or had an unfortunate encounter with a polar bear or pack of wolves. I was willing to donate flesh and blood to a large predator for this experience (or so I joked), but when I ventured off the road and onto a trail on the tundra to snap a few more photos and the mosquitoes found me, I tucked my tail and decided to flee. The Apex would wait for another day and I would instead head directly to the Road to Nowhere, the start of which was nearby. I also decided that I would keep my photo breaks to a bare minimum from this point onward as a dark swarm of mosquitoes engulfed me at every stop, and these mosquitoes were mean and the size of small animals, and once they tasted my suburban skin and blood, they notified their buddies and it was a feeding frenzy and I was the main course.

The Road to Nowhere was completely as advertised and before long as I ran, the colourful houses and buildings of the city started to disappear from view, replaced by streams and lakes and rolling hills and seemingly endless tundra in a very distinct colour palette. With each stride, the ocean slipped further from view and the tundra and emptiness became more prevalent. Only the occasional remnants of an old cabin or Inukshuk broke up the monotony of the landscape, and it was eerily quiet with no sounds of any sort other than shuffling of my shoes on the gravel road. My disappearance off the map happened so quickly it felt as if I’d been teleported to a strange new world, and a feeling of isolation rapidly and decisively took over and stayed with me until I reached nowhere at the end of the road, turned around, and slowly retraced my steps until the city once again came into focus over time.

While it’s human nature to want to share great experiences and sceneries, there’s something very humbling about being able to witness such beauty in solitude and feeling, if only for a brief moment, that this was created for your eyes only. And such was my experience on the Road to Nowhere.

– Stopping for a quick selfie on the Road to Nowhere as a mosquito takes a chunk out of my eyebrow

– If this is what nowhere looks like, I aim to be nowhere all the time