These Vets Flew to the Arctic So the Animals Didn't Have to Fly Out

Iqaluit has thousands of dogs and no permanent veterinarian. A volunteer team from Ontario is helping close that gap, one surgery at a time.

Iqaluit is home to a large dog population — strays, working dogs, and pets — and until a permanent veterinarian can be recruited and retained, the city's animal hospital runs on a skeleton crew that can handle vaccinations and minor injuries but not much more. Trauma cases, complex surgeries, emergency obstetrics: those animals have historically had one option. A three-hour flight south. For many owners, that is not a real option at all.

So the vets are going north instead.

For the past several years, rotating teams of veterinarians and veterinary technicians from eastern Ontario have been making the trip to Iqaluit to perform critical procedures at the Iqaluit Animal Hospital, which is operated by Nunavut Animal Rescue. Most recently, two vets and two technicians from Mississippi Mills Animal Hospital in Almonte, Ontario spent eight days there, returning home last week.

In that time, they saw approximately 60 patients. The primary mission was spays and neuters, but the work expanded as it always does. The team ran 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. days and stayed available for after-hours emergencies, including an emergency C-section on a pregnant dog. They brought their own surgical equipment and medication — supplies that are genuinely difficult to source in the North and that the local hospital cannot always keep stocked.

One of the veterinarians on the trip has now made the journey four times.

Kristen Haven, a manager with Nunavut Animal Rescue, told CBC News that the volunteer teams are providing something that cannot be overstated: basic access. "It's hard to imagine being in a place where you can't access that care at all, and your only choice is to get on a flight for three hours," she said.

The hospital currently has funding to hire a full-time veterinarian for one year but has not been able to fill the position. New X-ray and ultrasound equipment is on the way. Local volunteers assist visiting teams with post-op logistics — cleaning equipment, walking patients, sourcing food for animals in recovery. Nunavut Animal Rescue covers the volunteers' flights and arranges housing while they are there.

Teams typically rotate through every month or two, though gaps sometimes stretch longer.

For veterinary professionals wondering what showing up for the profession looks like outside the traditional practice model, this is a version of it. Remote, unglamorous, logistically complicated, and exactly the kind of work that does not make it onto a highlight reel but changes the outcome for an animal and an owner who had no other option.

Veterinary technician Keira Fuchs, who made her first trip north with this team, said it simply: "We tried to do as many as possible with our time there."