When finance ministers from the world's seven biggest industrial democracies descend on the small town of Iqaluit Friday, they will have more on their minds than financial system reform, China's undervalued yuan and mounting deficits.
The G7 finance ministers appear to be more concerned – even alarmed – at the prospect of being fed raw seal meat, being eaten by polar bears, and of course braving the Nunavut capital's freezing temperatures.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's decision to take his G7 counterparts to the High Arctic for their two-day meeting has raised eyebrows in Britain, the U.S., France, Italy, Germany and Japan.
One unnamed European official told a British newspaper it was "crazy."
The Times of London said British Finance Minister Alistair Darling will deliver a cautious message to global leaders at the G7: "...in one of the most hostile environments on earth, Baffin Island, a remote Canadian territory inside the Arctic circle where the average annual temperature is –8.5C. The sun sets on November 22 and does not rise again until January 19. For much of the year, the sparse population – just 11,000 – exists in an icy twilight zone, with only seals and whales to talk to."
The Times said international dignitaries will be handed high-tech warm clothing to prevent frostbite.
"I think we are all getting given some sort of special coat," a tight-lipped Darling told the Times. "Not sure we will be able to go out at night because of the polar bears."
The Wall Street Journal said the decision to site the meeting in a remote "Arctic Outpost" had caused a host of problems, from a complete absence of limousines to move the ministers and dignitaries around Iqaluit's snow-covered streets to difficulties arranging cell phone coverage.
"I don't know who put the G7 up there," the journal quoted Steven Douglas, the Washington, D.C.-based manager at Cellhire USA LLC, assembling a phone-rental system for the meeting because the area lacks coverage for popular GSM cell phones. "All communications are piped in through satellite."
The finance ministers will use up all 15 of the vehicles available from the town's single car-rental agency while "attendees further down the diplomatic food chain" according to the newspaper, will be shuttled around by school bus.
German officials are apparently unimpressed by at least one of the activities their Canadian hosts have arranged for the meeting. Flaherty plans to take his fellow ministers and central bank governors out for rides on dog sleds, but aides said German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble will not be joining him.
Schaeuble uses a wheelchair.
Meanwhile, security guards have been warned not to be alarmed by the sight of a local resident driving past on snow mobiles carrying rifles – they're hunters, not terrorists, Sgt. Jimmy Akavak, of the local RCMP detachment, told the Globe and Mail.
"It's not all the time you see people on a Ski-Doo with a rifle on their back," he says. "Here, that's a normal thing."
"It's something they may have to get used to in the next few days."
Still, Akavak said police, which will be reinforced by special trained RCMP officers flown in from Ottawa for the meeting, have warned local caribou and seal hunters not to approach the finance delegations "in an aggressive manner."
Security forces are not expecting a specific threat, he added and the Canadian Forces has no plan to deploy troops to Iqaluit to help secure the meeting.
Iqaluit has only about 300 hotel rooms, obliging some visiting officials to sleep in dormitories.
Most delegates will be housed in the Frobisher Inn, while media will be spread out in makeshift accommodations elsewhere. Protestors and non-governmental organizations are also expected to attend, but far fewer than usual due to the lack of infrastructure to house and feed them.
Fox News said Iqaluit was "cold enough to freeze a can of 10W30" and noted that blizzards can last more than a week.
Environment Canada lists the average February temperature in Iqaluit at -28 C, but the meteorological service has forecast a milder weekend, with daytime temperatures of -10 to -20 C.
Delegates and officials will be fed an all-Canadian menu, including a lunch of tourtière made from caribou, and the delicacy of raw seal meat to be served at a feast Saturday night after the meeting wraps up.
In addition, the foreign dignitaries will be sitting on seal-skin upholstered chairs at their meetings in the Nunavut assembly and they will be given seal-skin mittens and vests as parting gifts.
For European visitors, seal is an awkward issue. The EU recently banned imports of commercially hunted seal, although animals caught by traditional Inuit hunters were exempted.
The French delegation told The Wall Street Journal that they don't mind the menu. The French "eat anything that moves,'' said an official close to Finance Minister Christine Lagarde.
However the official added that the minister, a vegetarian, has to leave before the Saturday dinner.
Local people say much will depend on the weather. Jim Bell, editor of the Nunatsiaq News, told The Guardian newspaper that mild temperatures would allow visitors to glimpse spectacular scenery - but was quick to add: "If the weather's bad, they're not going to see much of a showcase. They'll see a lot of ugly, boxy metal-clad buildings and not very many people walking around."
Flaherty has jokingly called Iqaluit a "cozy little corner" of Canada, saying the response from delegates has so far been positive.
"The ministers all want to come, lots of the spouses want to come because it is our pristine Canadian North," he told the Canadian Press.
He said Iqaluit was chosen in order made to get officials away from the big city atmosphere so they could discuss some of the financial and economic problems facing the global economy frankly and openly.
And some appear to be taking the prospect of spending a February weekend north of the Arctic Circle in stride.
"I am very happy to go very far up, far up, far up in the north of Canada," Agence France Presse quoted European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet as saying. "We will have all the right environment to be as cool as possible in judging the situation."
