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For those unfamiliar with the dark skies and bitter cold of an authentic Iqaluit winter, Rannva Erlingsdottir Simonsen has some advice.

"If they have one good, warm winter coat, I recommend they bring that one - and another one. Wear them over the top of another," says Ms. Erlingsdottir Simonsen, 46, by trade a fur-coat designer and bed-and-breakfast operator in the Nunavut capital.

It is amid the Iqaluit cold next February (typically not a busy tourist month, she says) that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will host his G7 colleagues at a two-day summit in the city of 7,000. Mr. Flaherty framed the visit, some 2,000 kilometres north of Ottawa, as a true taste of Canada.

"I don't know if you've been Iqaluit in the middle of winter - I have. And it's the most beautiful scene I've ever seen in Canada," he said. "It's spectacularly pristine and gorgeous. And, yes, it's very cold, but we're Canadians. We're used to the cold."

It's not just any cold. Iqaluit's daily temperature in February is the coldest of any month, with average daily lows of -32 C, without wind chill, and only a few hours of light each day. And then there's the snow - Environment Canada senior climatologist Dave Phillips called it the "blizzard capital of Canada."

"This is the dead of winter we're talking about here," he said. "This is not Club Med in the North."

It's customary for international finance ministers to meet in advance of the gatherings of world leaders, such as the ones that will take place in Canada in June.

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Iqaluit, however, is becoming a host city of choice among the political ranks of late. Over the summer, Prime Minister Stephen Harper held a cabinet meeting in the tiny city - there are no traffic lights - in a show of Arctic sovereignty.

"We're starting to get a lot of exposure now," said Brian Twerdin, who runs a local coffee shop with his wife, Iqaluit Mayor Elisapee Sheutiapik.

Mr. Flaherty's office couldn't say Wednesday night whether Russian officials, who often sit in on G7 gatherings and have stepped up their own Arctic activities, would attend the meetings on Feb. 5 and 6.

Mr. Flaherty said his G7 peers are excited by the idea of a Nunavut summit, a break in the monotony of their big-city political schedules.

"They not only approve, they're intrigued," he said. "We travel around the world. And usually we're in one hotel room in one city compared to one hotel room in the other. And it doesn't really matter where you are. … But they'll remember Iqaluit."

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