Gov. Gen. David Johnston and his wife Sharon have landed in Iqaluit, as part of their first official visit to Canada's eastern Arctic.

The vice-regal couple landed Monday afternoon at the Iqaluit airport, where they were welcomed by Nunavut deputy premier Peter Taptuna along with government and military officials.

Local cadets, RCMP officers and members of the Canadian Rangers were also on hand at the airport.

"We're just thrilled," Johnston told reporters. "We'll come back with our children and our grandchildren. They would love it."

"It's wonderful, we don't want to leave," Sharon Johnston added.

David and Sharon Johnston also met with Nunavut Commissioner Edna Elias, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. president Cathy Towtongie and Iqaluit Mayor Madeleine Redfern before touring the territorial legislature building.

Filmmaker to be honoured

They are scheduled to participate in a community feast Monday evening at the Arctic Winter Games Centre.

During the feast, the Governor General will honour Igloolik, Nunavut-based filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk, who has made award-winning Inuit films such as Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner).

Kunuk is among the two recipients of this year's Northern Medal, which recognizes those who have made significant contributions to Canada's North. The medal is also going to Mary Simon, president of the national Inuit organization Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.

With this week's visit to Nunavut, David Johnston is rekindling a love affair of sorts with the North, having previously visited Yukon and the Northwest Territories with his family after growing up in northern Ontario.

But this is Johnston's maiden voyage to the eastern Arctic, and also marks the first time any governor general has visited two isolated and traditional communities due north of Hudson Bay, Kugaaruk and Qikiqtarjuaq.

"I'm particularly excited about this trip because I'd like many, many more Canadians to have the same experience my family's already had in other parts of the North — to see what a vast and diverse country this is and how wonderful it is," Johnston told The Canadian Press at Rideau Hall on Friday.

Visit about 'showing respect'

Qikiqtarjuaq is sometimes called the iceberg capital of Nunavut and is known for its traditional craft in making sealskin parkas and boots. One of Kugaaruk's claims to fame is having recorded the coldest wind chill ever in Canada: –78 C in January 1975.

Zacharias Kunuk, left, and co-producer Norman Cohn on the set of The Journals of Knud Rasmussen in this 2006 promotional handout photo. (Handout photo/Canadian Press)

Both are a world away from the experience of the vast majority of Canadians who live huddled within 100 kilometres of the Canada-U.S. border.

His visit, said Johnston, is "showing respect for the people who live in those northerly areas and are living with customs that come down over thousands and thousands of years, and are still extant."

Johnston said Canada has a unique challenge in nation-building because of its geography.

"It's a striking feature of Canada, the second largest land mass in the world with extraordinary variety and a very small population spread over that," said the Sudbury, Ont., born vice-regal.

"That's a unique kind of challenge: How do you make a country when you're spread so far and spread so thin? Yet we have."

Will observe military training exercises

The Johnstons' seven-day tour of Nunavut includes the observation of military training exercises — Operation Nanook — in Resolute Bay.

As commander-in-chief of the Canadian Forces, Johnston looks forward to the military element of the Arctic trip "but at the same time to do other things as well."

The former law professor and university principal will tour the Nunavut Research Institute in Igloolik, the Polar Continental Shelf Program in Resolute and visit an ancient, early Inuit Thule site in Repulse Bay.

"I'm a university teacher, have been all my life, and I'm very interested in the research — both fundamental and applied, both social science and natural science and humanities — that is going on in the North," said Johnston.

He'll also discuss educational challenges with teachers in Iqaluit and help promote a new Northern Global Vision Riding Ambassador Program — designed to foster civic engagement in youth — at Tusarvik School in Repulse Bay.

While it will be a learning experience for Johnston and his wife, he also hopes Canadians at large follow his trip's progress and learn along with them.

The Governor General's goal is to "take some of the lessons of how those communities manage themselves and govern themselves and make them understandable to the rest of Canada."

Ultimately, it's all about understanding the diversity of the country, he said.

"While we have different ways of raising our families and governing our communities, we also have a great deal in common — and that is that we all want our children to do better and need to depend upon one another to do just that."

With files from the CBC's Peter Sheldon and The Canadian Press