Iqaluit.

It was all so long ago. Some things looked familiar, but he had no recollection of most of what he saw. The clouds seemed to have stayed behind in Montreal, and now the sun shone down from a steel-blue sky, making it pleasantly warm. It was at least ten degrees, thought Anawak, and felt overdressed. He pulled off his down jacket and tied it round his waist, then trudged along the dusty road. There was a surprising amount of traffic. He couldn't remember there being so many four-by-fours and ATVs, small multi-axial buggies ridden like motorbikes. The street was lined with timber houses built in characteristic Arctic style with little stilts to raise them off the ground. Any building that rested directly on the tundra would melt the permafrost and start to sink.

As Anawak made his way through the town, he couldn't help thinking that God's hand must have descended over Iqaluit, shaking a clutch of buildings like dice and scattering them at random. Gigantic edifices made of windowless harsh white panels loomed up like abstract cubist structures among olive-green or rusty-red barracks. The school resembled a marooned UFO. Some of the houses glowed in deep shades of petrol blue or aquamarine. Towards the centre of town he came across the Commissioner's House, a cross between a cosy country villa and a space dome for astronauts. He tried to remain detached from his surroundings, but since the seaplane accident he had lost the ability to cloak himself in indifference. The crazy architectural hotchpotch conveyed nonchalance, even merriment, that he couldn't shut out.

The depressive Iqaluit of the seventies had vanished. People seemed friendly, greeting him in Inuktitut. He responded tersely. Without stopping he walked through the streets for an hour, popping in briefly to the Unikkaarvik Visitor Center, which boasted an even larger sculpture of a drum dancer.

When he was a kid, there'd been plenty of drum dancing. But that was a long time ago, when things were still OK… if they ever had been.

He went out on to the street where the glaring sunshine was oppressively hot. He passed to the right of the Anglican church – a stone igloo with a spire – then went back to the terminal where he sat down on a bench with a newspaper. With the exception of the couple, no one else was waiting for the flight. He held up the newspaper to cut himself off from the world and skimmed the articles without absorbing their content, then tossed it aside.

Eventually the young woman from the ticket desk came to collect them. They filed out through a side door, then walked on to the aircraft manoeuvring area, where a small twin-engined propeller plane, a Piper, was waiting. Anawak and his fellow passengers climbed the two steps to the cramped interior. There were only six seats. All the baggage had been stashed under netting at the rear of the plane. The cockpit led straight in to the cabin without any partition. They taxied on to the runway, waited for another Piper to land, then took a short, fast run-up and lifted off shakily. The terminal shrank and vanished, Frobisher Bay glittering far below. They flew west over mountains carved by glaciers and capped with snowfields and ice sheets. To their left, rays of sunshine glistened on Hudson Strait, while to the right, they sparkled on a lake, whose name Anawak suddenly remembered: Amadjuak.

They had gone there sometimes.

It was coming back to him at giddying speed. The memories appeared before him like silhouettes in a snowstorm, drawing him into the past, where he didn't want to go.

The terrain levelled out, then gave way to water. The flight continued over the sea for twenty minutes, until Rigged land reappeared through the cockpit window. The seven islands of Tellik Inlet came into view. A thin line cut into one of the islands: Cape Dorset runway.

They touched down.

Anawak felt his heart spring forward. He was home. As the Piper taxied slowly towards the terminal, he felt loath to get out.

Cape Dorset, capital of Inuit art and home to 1200 people: the New York of the north, as it was half jokingly, half admiringly called.

That was the modern Cape Dorset.

Back then things had been different.

Cape Dorset: Kinngait, or 'high mountain' in the Inuit tongue, was situated in the Sikusiilaq region, 'where no ice ever forms on the sea', so-named because even in the harshest winter, temperate currents prevented the water freezing round Foxe Peninsula on the south-west extremity of Baffin Island. Names flooded back. Mallikjuaq, a tiny island near Cape Dorset, a nature reserve full of marvels – fox-traps from the nineteenth century, ruins from ancient Thule culture, burial sites that were the source of countless legends, and a romantic lake where they had camped. Anawak remembered the stone kayak-stands. He'd loved it there. Then he pictured his parents, and remembered what had driven him out of Nunavut, when it was still part of the Northwest Territories and didn't have its own name.

He picked up his rucksack and clambered out of the plane.

A man ran over to greet the couple. The reunion was effusive, but that was nearly always the way: the Inuit had any number of words for 'welcome', but none for 'farewell'. No one had bidden Anawak farewell when he'd taken his leave nineteen years previously, not even the weather-beaten old man who was left standing alone on the airfield as the trio of friends moved noisily away. For a moment Anawak had difficulty recognising him. Ijitsiaq Akesuk had aged noticeably and now sported a thin grey moustache on his once clean-shaven face. But it was him. The creased face widened into grin. He hurried towards Anawak and threw his arms round him. A stream of Inuktitut words spilled from his lips.

Then he switched into English. 'Leon, my child. What a handsome young scientist you are.'

Anawak let him finish embracing him, and thumped Akesuk halfheartedly on the back. 'Uncle Iji. How are you?'

'Oh, as well as can be expected, considering the occasion. Did you have a good flight? You must have been travelling for days – all those places you must have been just to get here…'

'I had to change planes a few times.'

'Toronto? Montreal?' Akesuk let go of him and beamed. Like many of the Inuit, he had gaps in his top teeth. 'Montreal. You travel a lot, don't you? What a joy. You'll have to tell me all about it. You'll stay with us, now, won't you? We've got everything ready for you. Is that all your luggage?'

'Er, Uncle Iji-'

'Iji – you're too old for "uncle" now.'

'I booked a hotel.'

Akesuk took a step back. 'Which one?'

'The Polar Lodge.'

There was fleeting disappointment on the old man's face, but then he beamed. 'We can cancel it. I know the manager. No problem.'

'I don't want to put you to any trouble,' said Anawak. I only came to bury my father in the ice, he thought, and then to get the hell out of here.

'It's no trouble,' said Akesuk. 'You're my nephew. How long are you staying?'

'Two nights. I thought that would be enough, right?'

Akesuk frowned. He took Anawak's arm and pulled him through the airport. 'We'll talk about that later. Aren't you hungry?'

'Very.'

'Excellent. Mary-Ann's made caribou stew and a seal soup with rice. A real feast. When was the last time you had seal soup, hmm?'

Anawak allowed himself to be whisked away. A line of vehicles was parked outside the airport and Akesuk headed purposefully towards a truck.

'Throw your rucksack in the back. Do you remember Mary-Ann? Of course you don't. You'd already left by the time she moved out here from Salluit. We got married. I hated being alone. She's younger than me – which isn't a bad thing, I might tell you. Are you married? Goodness me, there's so much to talk about after all these years.'

Anawak shuffled around on the passenger seat. Akesuk seemed determined to talk him into submission. He tried to remember if the old man had always been so chatty. Then it occurred to him that his uncle might be feeling as nervous as he was. One retreated into silence; the other talked.