'I'm going to have fun one last time.'

Issacie Ikkidluak smiled and stifled the occasional laugh as he was sentenced to four years in prison for orchestrating a three-day armed standoff in Kimmirut last month.

Ikkidluak, 26, pleaded guilty this past Tuesday to four charges: discharging a firearm intending to cause bodily harm, uttering threats, illegal possession of a firearm, and breach of probation.

Justice Beverly Browne sentenced Ikkidluak to the mandatory minimum of four years on the first charge. Ikkidluak will simultaneously serve six months for the other three charges.

"You deserve some credit for standing up and taking responsibility for what you've done," Browne told Ikkidluak during sentencing.

The Crown stayed two other firearms charges as part of the plea agreement.

Ikkidluak is also banned for life from possessing guns and must give a DNA sample. Browne ordered that two unregistered rifles seized by police after the standoff be destroyed.

Kimmirut came to a virtual standstill during the incident. The hamlet's school and stores shut down, and police evacuated nearby residents from their homes.

Court heard that the standoff began April 15 when Ikkidluak got into an argument with his brother, while his mother was in the next room, the kitchen. The confrontation escalated and Ikkidluak got a .22-calibre rifle from his bedroom.

Ikkidluak then pointed the rifle in his mother's face, said Crown lawyer Rachel Furey.

Standing roughly two metres away from his mother, Ikkidluak pulled the trigger and narrowly missed her. She fell to the ground and covered her face. Ikkidluak told his mother he'd kill her if she told anyone what happened.

But Ikkidluak's mother fled the house while his brother remained inside. She phoned police from Kimmirut's health centre. It's not clear if or when Ikkidluak's brother left the family home.

Police negotiator Corporal Jimmy Akavak later contacted Ikkidluak by phone and urged him to give himself up.

"If this is what they want, this is what they get," Ikkidluak responded. "I'm staying in the house."

Furey said Ikkidluak told Akavak he wanted to "make big news," make a last stand and kill himself.

He told Akavak he'd been thinking about such an act for a long time and threatened to kill an RCMP officer and his family.

"I'm going to have fun one last time," Ikkidluak told Akavak.

While local RCMP waited for an emergency response team to arrive from Ottawa and made several unsuccessful attempts to reconnect with Ikkidluak, three residents, never identified in court, brought cigarettes and marijuana to him.

They reported that Ikkidluak said, "This is it." The three people were then told by police not to have any more contact with Ikkidluak.

During the early morning of April 16, the emergency response team arrived in Kimmirut. About 30 minutes later, at 2:05 a.m., three gunshots were heard inside the house, followed by a fourth shot five minutes later.

Later on April 16, police got a warrant to enter the house, but Ikkidluak barred both doors. After police threw tear gas canisters into the house through the windows, Ikkidluak answered them with a single gunshot.

Defence lawyer Chris Debicki said his client had no memory of that gunshot, but accepts he's the only one who could have fired it.

The standoff dragged on until 1:45 p.m. April 17, when Ikkidluak, carrying a rifle and heading toward RCMP officers, made a dash for his cousin's house. Police fired twice at Ikkidluak and missed.

From his cousin's house, Ikkidluak spoke on the phone with his girlfriend, who urged him to give himself up. At 1:45 p.m. April 18, he did so, and he and his cousin, Robert Qimirpik, were arrested.

Qimirpik, 20, is to appear in court in Kimmirut May 22 on a charge of obstructing police.

Debicki said Ikkidluak insists he wasn't trying to shoot his mother, only scare her. He said Ikkidluak was driven over the edge by a long-running dispute with his brother.

Ikkidluak returned to Kimmirut in March 2007 after serving one year in jail for a firearms offence, only to find that his brother had sold his things, including a wooden canoe made by their late father, Debicki said.

"Issacie snapped in this conflict with his brother in the worst way possible."

But Furey urged the court to try to discourage further armed standoffs by imprisoning Ikkudluak. "It's important that Issacie know and people in Kimmirut and people in Nunavut know" such incidents are serious and dangerous, she said.

In handing down her sentence, Browne urged Ikkidluak to get an education and counselling while in prison. She said she hoped he would one day be able to gain the forgiveness of his mother and brother.