Inside nomadic enclave with no roads where temperatures reach -49F that inspired Netflix’s North of The North

Netflix‘s latest hit series North of the North is based off a tiny town of 8,000 people in Northern Canada where temperatures reach a freezing -49 degrees Fahrenheit and there are no roads.

The show follows a young woman and mother who is reinventing herself while living in her tiny fiction town of Ice Cove in Nunavut, the same region Iqaluit is located in. 

The show was largely filmed in Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut and a remote community full of Inuit, an indigenous arctic group. 

‘It’s a small community,’ Charlotte Dewolff, who owns Astro Theatre and held a premiere for the show there, told DailyMail.com. ‘Everybody seems to know everybody.

‘It’s a good place to raise a family,’ she continued. ‘I really like the people… [And] I don’t mind cold weather.’ 

Dewolff lived in the small town from 1999 to 2020 after moving there for work. And although she does have some Arctic Indigenous in her genes, she didn’t know that when she lived there. 

‘The Inuit are very open and accepting,’ Dewolff, who still has an apartment in the town, said. She described the Inuit as having a ‘friendliness’ to them and a ‘good sense of humor’. 

And she believes that Netflix has portrayed the community correctly – or at least their sense of humor. 

Netflix’s North of the North is based off a tiny town of 8,000 in Northern Canada where temperatures reach a blistering -49 degrees Fahrenheit and there are no roads

The show follows a young woman (pictured) who is reinventing herself while living in her tiny fiction town of Ice Cove in Nunavut, the same region Iqaluit is located in

Iqaluit (pictured) is the capital of Nunavut and a remote community full of Inuit, an indigenous arctic group

‘I think that it was,’ she said. ‘I identified with some of it.’ 

Iqaluit has a many things to do, such as swimming, hockey, soccer, dancing, and a fitness center, although the Astro Theatre, which shows big films as well as those made by Intuit creatives. 

‘You’re five minutes away from anything,’ Dewolff, who still visits often, told DailyMail.com. 

She said the only downside to the remote town is the brittle cold, with temperatures dropping as low as negative 49 degrees Fahrenheit. Despite the coldness, it doesn’t get a terrible amount of snow or wind. 

‘It’s a dry cold,’ Dewolff said. The place is often described as an ‘Arctic desert,’ she said. 

Another setback is the inaccessibility of getting to the land, which is only accessible by air and is very expensive to travel to. 

To fly from Calgary in Alberta – where Dewolff now lives – to Iqaluit, it would cost at least $1,500 and rarely a direct flight there. Similar for those coming from Ottawa or Ontario. 

A file photo shows an Inuit woman throws a harpoon, used to catch seals, in a competition during a celebration ceremony in Iqaluit

The show was largely filmed in Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut 

‘It’s a small community,’ Charlotte Dewolff, who owns Astro Theatre and held a premiere for the new Netflix series there, told DailyMail.com. ‘Everybody seems to know everybody’

‘The whole territory is so proud of this,’ Dewolff said of the Netflix show. ‘The whole community supports it.’ 

Many of the community worked as extras in the background of North of the North.

Series creator Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, who lives in Iqaluit, told Broadview: ‘Our town is fictional, and we chose that consciously because we wanted to be able to take the best parts of small, tiny towns and the best parts of Iqaluit, the big city.

‘And something we love about living in Iqaluit is that it really is a diverse community,’ she continued. ‘We wanted our fictional town to have that vibe where there’s Inuit from the Western Arctic, Inuit from the Eastern Arctic.’ 

The stunning region is full of snowcapped mountains and large stretches of barren land, only interrupted by small villages of brightly-colored homes. 

Iqaluit is the most northern part of Canada and film crews took the small town between March and June 2024.  

The creators wanted to use the area to show the Inuit and their lifestyle, which Dewolff said made the community very happy. 

‘The community loves to do it, we love to host [film crews],’ she said. 

Dewolff believes the Netflix did portray the community correctly – or at least their sense of humor (pictured: the show filming) 

The show’s creators are also from Iqaluit, although they named the town Ice Cover in the show (pictured). Iqaluit is the most northern part of Canada and film crews took the small town between March and June 2024

‘They love to see their culture on the screen.’  

Several local places appear throughout the show, including the curling club and the Discovery Hotel. 

Even the main character’s home can be found at the end of a cul-de-sac in Tundra Valley neighborhood of the city, according to The Nunatsiaq News. 

The city shot to fame in 1995 when it became the capital of the new territory Nunavut through a referendum in 2016. 

This gave the Inuit people control over their community and institutions. 

After becoming the capital, people began flooding the area, raising its population of 3,000 to around 8,000 today. 

‘It’s a government town,’ Dewolff said. 

The creators wanted to use the area to show the Inuit and their lifestyle, which Dewolff said made the community very happy. ‘The community loves to do it, we love to host [film crews],’ she told DailyMail.com

And although the majority of residents are Inuit, there are those from the Southern regions of Canada, who mainly come to work for the government, she said. 

Since living there, Dewolff has watched the area grow and said she proud of its achievements. 

‘[It’s] so good to see what it has achieved,’ she told DailyMail.com.