Iqaluit memorial service honours Nunavut hunter Sandy Oolayou

Sandy Oolayou, left, receives a certificate from Simon Awa on behalf of the seal celebration committee June 21, 2013 in Iqaluit at the Celebration of the Seal event. Oolayou was known for sharing his catch with the community. (FILE PHOTO)

Iqalungmiut will get a chance to honour the memory of Sandy Oolayou, a hunter who went missing during the Toonik Tyme spring festival’s seal-hunting contest, in a memorial ceremony at the Iqaluit Christian Fellowship Church this evening.

Oolayou is presumed to have drowned when his snowmobile broke through the sea ice near Ward Inlet, April 6, according to evidence searchers found during a land and air search.

Organizers of Iqaluit’s Toonik Tyme festival are offering added support to the lost hunter’s family with a benefit concert, April 18.The Toonik Tyme Society first considered cancelling the 50th annual festival altogether once searchers and the RCMP concluded the hunter had drowned in the accident, the non-profit group’s president, Travis Cooper, told Nunatsiaq News.

Sheila Oolayou, the deceased hunter’s wife, told Iqaluit Mayor Mary Wilman that the family wanted the festival to continue.

“Sheila told me that it shouldn’t suddenly be halted because of an accident,” Wilman told Nunatsiaq News. “Their wish was for Iqalungmiut to continue with the activities, and have proper closure.”

The festival’s organizing committee cancelled the one Toonik Tyme event scheduled for April 8, the day after police announced the search for Oolayou had been called off and the hunter “presumed deceased.”

Events continued the next day, including the festival’s closing feast, which normally celebrates the conclusion of the festival’s first week of events.

Organizers and performers at the April 9 evening event decided to turn the event around, for the benefit of the Oolayou family.

Proceeds from the sale of raffle tickets for a large qamutik loaded with camping gear — which were to be raised as prize money for an Iqaluit-Kimmirut snowmobile race – were donated to the family instead.

The draw for the prize-winner went ahead as planned, and $14,440 was raised to support Sheila Oolayou and the family.

But help and support did not end there. Cooper and fellow organizers decided to open up the festival’s wrap-up concert the next evening, April 10, as a free family event — requesting donations for admission instead of $20 to cover costs.

The concert raised another $1,044 to benefit the Oolayou family, Cooper said.

Continuing with the festival, which was celebrating its half-century anniversary with a much-expanded schedule, extending as far as April 19, “was definitely a good decision,” Cooper said.

“We remembered Mr. Oolayou very well. We wanted more of a good remembrance kind of atmosphere as opposed to a sombre sort of situation,” he said. “He’s still in all of our hearts.”

The April 18 benefit concert will take place at the Iqaluit curling rink. Toonik Tyme is also taking cash donations to benefit the family.

Oolayou, 44, was known to the community as a prolific hunter who always shared his catch. As a lands program officer, he taught hunting and fishing to inmates from the Baffin Correctional Centre, as well as to youth offenders.

Sandy Oolayou’s memorial service takes place at the Iqaluit Christian Memorial Church, 6:30 p.m., on the Road to Nowhere.