Car Shopping

We are trying to buy a vehicle, which up here means pretty much anything from sedan to a pickup and an ATV to a snowmachine (we don't use the brand name Ski-Doo as a universal noun, think vacuum not Hoover). The Suzuki will be joining us in July or August so we don't really want to buy a car just to use for a couple of months, rather we would prefer to build a stable comprising a vehicle for each occasion and season:

• ATV for use on days above -10, maybe May to September (buddy in the Yamaha dealership informs us it is very unwise to run your quad in colder tempreatures, ATV suicide in fact)
• Snowmachine for hunting, Sunday trips to Apex or Sylvia Grinnel and general running around town from Mid-October to Mid-May.
• Suzuki for commuting, and times when we want a roof.

First you must find a vehicle for sale. This is acheived through posters on noticeboards, the Facebook Iqaluit Sell / Swap page, and word of mouth. No-one has the foresight to date their posters so you have no idea how long they have been promoting their wares... maybe that is deliberate. The facebook page is not categorized in anyway so there is a lot of scrolling to be done, but reading the comments where people occasionally bitch about the price or quality of the items for sale is entertaning compensation for the effort. Having located a vehicle that you are interested in you then must attempt to make contact with the vendor who may or may not respond to telephone calls or emails. You may then find that having made contact, viewed the vehicle and made an offer, that the vendor decides not to sell. It is a different world up here and you will drive yourself insane trying to figure these things out, so just roll with it.

I forgot to mention perhaps the most important and most difficult part. You must reconcile in your mind that paying showroom prices for used vehicles is normal, and that showroom prices do not include tax or shipping. When I say showroom, that applies only to ATVs and Snowmachines, there is no car dealership up here. July to October is sealift season when the market is flooded with fresh mechanical meat, the rest of the year you get to make your very limited choice from those vehicles already here, or you pay big bucks to fly something up. Unless of course you know someone on the inside and can access the $1 per kilo cargo rates. Currently on the market is a 2007 Dodge Nitro for $20k, a 2010 Polaris Switchback for $10,800 and a 2008 Yamaha Kodiak for $6,500

As soon as we have made a purchase I shall be all over posting it here, in the mean time I need to get some sleep so I am ready for my pedestrian commute in the morning.