Ice Crusade

"This is, unfortunately, an opportunity for the world to see the face of global warming," Gyllenhaal said during an interview over dinner after an afternoon dogsledding on the sea ice. "In helping these people, we help the world."

The region's Inuit, who used to be known as Eskimos, were enthusiastic about enlisting Hollywood stars to make their case. "What we like to do is engage in the politics of influence rather than the politics of protest," Watt-Cloutier said.

In this particular case, the politics of influence meant carrying out what artist John Quigley -- a Bethesda native who now lives in California -- called "a crazy idea": Hayek and Gyllenhaal would join more than 500 Iqaluit residents, mostly children, to sit down in the frigid wind at Rotary Park on a vast expanse of snow-covered ice, sending a visual message about the impact of climate change on Inuit life and culture.

"I want people to look at it and say, 'Wow, I really didn't think about the people,' " explained Quigley, who attracted headlines a couple years ago for spending 71 days in a 400-year-old California tree to keep developers from felling it.

The two actors mingled with the crowd during the aerial shoot, snapping photos of children as well as posing and signing notebooks, backpacks and scraps of paper offered by local residents, some of whom don't speak English.

Elisapee Sheutiapik, the city's 39-year-old mayor, said there's been "a big hype" about the stars' visit, with local residents unearthing their ceremonial sealskin and caribou outfits. "Everyone's getting out their gear, dusting it off," she said.

At times the juxtaposition of two celebrities and a native people seemed incongruous: Hayek worked the sea ice with her Louis Vuitton purse in hand, while Gyllenhaal entertained questions ("Does it get this cold in L.A.?"). And while many residents knew about the celebrities, Gyllenhaal acknowledged some older Inuit weren't likely to have caught his films.

"It's a generational thing," he explained. "You're talking to an Inuit elder . . . " His voice trailed off.

Gyllenhaal said he welcomed a chance "to be inside the culture" of the Arctic, "which is full of darkness and full of perversity, too. . . . I'm interested in a people who have a lot of pain underneath but still offer hope."

And nearly every Iqaluit resident interviewed last week was pleased that two famous stars took the time to trek to their town.

"It shows they're taking an interest in the North," said Joe Hess, a local outfitter and soapstone miner who has lived in Iqaluit for the past 27 years.

Hayek and Gyllenhaal don't plan to barnstorm the United States on an anti-global-warming tour: She flew back Sunday to Jacksonville, Fla., to complete a film noir set in the 1940s with John Travolta and James Gandolfini, while Gyllenhaal's about to start filming "Zodiac," another murder-themed movie, with Robert Downey Jr. But both said they would continue to press for changes in American energy and environmental policy now that they have seen some of its human costs.

"I am very, very moved by the warmth of this icy place," Hayek told the project's organizers during the gala caribou dinner after the aerial event. "I will take that with me."

For Sheutiapik, the mayor, the stars had served their purpose: "They put us on the map."