Fire forces Nunatsiaq to make itself the story

Nunatsiaq News was forced to break one of the cardinal rules of journalism Tuesday: Don’t make yourself the story.

But we woke up to the news there was a fire where our Iqaluit office is located. The blue two-storey building on Nipisa Street was also home to our sister company Ayaya Marketing and Communications, as well as to other tenants who rented space there and an apartment on the back.

Inuit Uqausinginnik Taiguusiliuqtiit, a language authority organization responsible for documenting and sharing expertise on the Inuit language, occupied the first floor.

We were alerted at about 8 a.m., so fortunately no one had started their day yet. By noon, it was clear the building would be a complete loss.

Smoke billows from the blaze at 157 Nipisa St. in Iqaluit Tuesday morning. The building is home to Nunatsiaq News and other tenants. (Photo by David Lochead)

Imagine the surreal experience for reporter David Lochead who, first thing in the morning, got a text about a fire at his own office, then had to swing into action to cover it.

The immediate reactions were shock and devastation. But they gave way to relief when we understood that none of our employees or our Ayaya colleagues were in the building.

Our next reaction was to do what journalists do — cover breaking news. Was everyone OK? How were firefighters and police responding? How much damage has the building sustained? Could the building be saved?

Naturally, our competitors were quick to jump on the story. So, we also felt pressure to make sure we didn’t get beat on a story about the fire destroying our own office.

At the same time, it was heartening to hear from other journalists who reached out to make sure we were OK, and to offer help to continue pumping out the news.

We also heard from people in the community offering words of support, a testament to Nunatsiaq’s long-standing, integral position there — even if readers occasionally throw darts our way.

Iqaluit sources told us it was probably the city’s biggest fire since Joamie Elementary School was destroyed in 2003 — more than 20 years ago.

Nunatsiaq News doesn’t expect any disruption in the way we deliver the news to our readers. If there’s a silver lining from COVID-19, it’s that the past four years have taught us how to be productive while working from home.

So, for the short term, our Iqaluit team will be tapping out stories on their laptops from their kitchen tables instead of their office desks.

Our advertising department will continue to serve its clients, helping them get their messages out.

Nunatsiaq’s home was a quirky little workspace. It was conveniently located close to The Snack and the Quickstop’s KFC and Pizza Hut, handy for fuelling the journalist lifestyle.

Some of the sentimental memorabilia lost in Tuesday’s fire include framed awards and plaques of historic front pages Nunatsiaq News has published over the years. (File photo by Corey Larocque)

But there was no washroom on the second floor, so you had to go up and down a set of stairs to use the facilities. And it seemed like the heating either never worked or worked like a sauna.

It had weird little windows in the walls that looked like portholes from a ship. No one ever had a good explanation for that.

Yet it was home to the paper’s Iqaluit staff for about 20 of the paper’s 50-year history.

The nature of work in 2024 means we probably didn’t lose too many irreplaceable items. Staff had their laptops at home. And one reporter had taken his camera gear home.

It seems like there wasn’t much archival material lost — at least material that wasn’t also duplicated at our Ottawa office.

One of the sentimental losses are the journalism awards that hung on the walls or stood on a shelf, some earned by the late Jim Bell, the venerable editor who led the paper for three decades. There were also plaques of some front pages the paper published marking historic milestones in Nunavut’s history.

It wasn’t lost on us that this fire destroyed Nunatsiaq’s office in the same week the paper is preparing articles to mark the 25^th anniversary of Nunavut.

If there’s anything Nunatsiaq has learned from covering Nunavut, it’s about resilience. The news never stops, and we’ll keep cranking it out, despite Tuesday’s setback.

Corey Larocque is managing editor of Nunatsiaq News