The town itself is small enough to cover on foot in an afternoon — the igloo-shaped Our Lady of Victory Church, the wooden Anglican Church next door, the geodesic-domed greenhouse, the small mosque on the edge of town, and the bank of the Mackenzie East Channel are essentially the lot. The real reason people come is what surrounds Inuvik: the Mackenzie Delta, the tundra, the northern lights from August through April, the Beaufort Sea two hours up the highway, and the Dempster Highway that brought you here.