As a child, Ruth Wright loved oranges so much that she’d trade candy for them — a treat she rarely got in the Northwest Territories, outside of her stocking on Christmas morning.
Now an elder in the Inuvik Gwich’in community, Wright pays between $1.50 to $3 for one orange, knowing the fruit travelled roughly eight days and more than 6,000 kilometres to reach her.
The cost of most fruit and vegetables in Arctic grocery stores is exponentially higher than in Canada’s southern communities, rising even more alongside the price of gas. To investigate the factors affecting food security in northern areas