Finance ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) countries kicked off a meeting near the Arctic Circle in Canada with a ride across the icy north on dog sleds.

Friday’s ride was aimed at displaying the “folksiness” and “back to basics” advocated by Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, the Vancouver Sun reported.

The meeting brings together the finance ministers and central bank heads from the world’s seven leading industrial nations: Japan, the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Germany.

At the top of their agenda in the small town of Iqaluit is reform of the global financial system.

The meeting comes as the bloc is struggling to find its proper role on the international stage. At a September summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the G7 was replaced by the larger Group of 20 bloc - which includes the European Union and economic powerhouses from the developing world, such as China, India and Brazil, as well as the G7 nations - as the premier forum for discussing global economic issues.

The shift means there will be no official communique coming at the end of the G7 meeting on Saturday. Instead, there will be a statement from the Canadian host and a joint press conference of the bloc’s finance ministers.

The finance leaders are to also consider “generous debt relief” for the quake-stricken Caribbean nation of Haiti, according to a senior US administration official.

Other issues on the agenda: the sluggish global economic recovery, plans to remove stimulus measures that are pushing up government deficits, rebalancing global growth and the valuation of China’s currency.

Central to the talks on financial reform is the problem of banks considered “too big to fail,” which could again drag the entire financial system into crisis in the future.

The worldwide financial crisis that began in 2008 was sparked by high-risk mortgages and complicated investment vehicles that led to the collapse of big-name US financial institutions.

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