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Nattivak’s self-reliance wins praise from QIA

”We will make the decisions, not foreign or southern interests.”

JIM BELL

Samuel Nuqingaq, Harry Alookie and Koalie Kooneeliusie of Qikiqtarjuaq’s Nattivak Hunters and Trappers Association making a presentation to the Qikiqtani Inuit Association in Iqaluit this past Friday. Kooneeliusie, Nattivak’s chairman, said the community’s next steps are to build a small port and a raw seal skin processing plant. (PHOTO BY JIM BELL)

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”If you need our support in any manner, we are here to help you. We support self-reliance for our people,” said Thomassie Alikatuktuk, QIA’s president.

Delegates at QIA’s annual meeting in Iqaluit heard Nattivak members describe how far they’ve come and how far they plan to go in their struggle to build community-based fish, sealing and transportation projects in Qikiqtarjuaq.

Their next steps include completing deals to buy fishing vessels to catch their recently-expanded turbot quota, building a $2 million small craft harbour, and setting up a raw processing plant for seal skins.

“We plan to be in a position of independence, whereby we will make the decisions, not foreign or southern interests,” Koalie Kooneeliusie, Nattivak’s chair, said in a presentation to QIA delegates this past Friday.

In that presentation, Kooneeliusie described how the community’s fortunes blossomed after Nattivak withdrew from the Baffin Fisheries Coalition in May, 2004.

In 2005 Nattivak set up Masiliit Corp., their for-profit company, and began seeking quota in the recently-opened turbot grounds of northern Davis Strait, or area 0A. Starting in 2001, virtually all turbot from that area was fished by boats that received quota through deals with the BFC.

Faced with lukewarm support at best from Nunavut-based organizations, Nattivak members set out on an aggressive lobbying and information campaign in Ottawa. There they met with the Senate and House of Commons fisheries committees, the prime minister’s office, and numerous senators and MPs.

This past June, all that lobbying paid off. Loyola Hearne, the fisheries minister, awarded Masiliit a 700-tonne share of a 2,500-tonne quota increase in 0A that became available for this year.

In response to a question from the QIA’s Iqaluit representative, Sytukie Joamie, Sam Nuqingaq, Nattivak’s secretary-treasurer, said the biggest hurdle they faced was the territorial government’s indifference.

It’s that, more than anything else, that forced them to take their message directly to Ottawa.

“This 700-tonne quota would not have been given to us if we had not gone to the federal government,” Nuqingaq said.

That 700-tonnes of fish represents a 28-per-cent chunk of this year’s new quota, the same as that received by the BFC, and a “recognition of Masiliit as a Nunavut offshore fisheries enterprise,” Koalie Kooneeliusie said.

Access to that quota will give Masiliit the financial muscle it needs to finish buying at least two fixed-gear fishing vessels.

That’s because the extra royalty income will help beef up funding applications to leverage money from a variety of government loan- and grant-giving agencies.

Kooneeliusie said the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board should ensure that Masiliit gets secure access to turbot quota for at least five years, so the company can complete the financing of its vessel acquisition program.

That echoes a recommendation made in an NWMB-sponsored report on Nunavut’s offshore fishery issued earlier this year, which recommended that the BFC get “sufficient quota to operate efficiently for the next five years.”

“We believe that Masiliit is every bit as deserving as the BFC,” Kooneeliusie said.

Sam Nuqingaq pointed out that unlike other bigger companies, Masiliit does not engage in dragger-trawling, a fishing technique that’s facing increasing criticism.

Instead, they mainly use gill nets with larger mesh-sizes to allow smaller fish to escape. “Nattivak uses environmentally-friendly equipment,” Nuqingaq said.

The next key step in the development of a marine resource economy in Qikiqtarjuaq is to get an offloading port for fishing vessels.

This would allow them to ship products caught by Masiliit and other companies to Canadian destinations on a transport vessel that they hope to either lease or own. Right now, most of the turbot and shrimp caught within Nunavut’s waters is landed in Greenland.

And with the help of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Government of Nunavut, they hope to get that port by accessing money from a $41-million expansion of DFO’s small craft harbour program.

At an estimated cost of $2 million, a port at Qikiqtarjuaq would be the lowest-cost port of the seven in Nunavut that would be covered by the program.

A port, in turn, would support the phased development of a processing plant for seal skins, using a machine to flesh and cure skins that would be sold to a plant in Newfoundland owned by the Barry Group.

Masiliit has already bought a set of trailers used in a recent DEW line cleanup for use at a port and a processing plant.

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