Ontario police ask for help finding Joseph Palluq

Police in Ontario are asking the public for help locating Joseph Illuapik Palluq, who was last seen on Friday, May 1, on Lake Clear in Ontario’s Bonnechere Valley.

Palluq took out his kayak on the lake at about 9 p.m., said the Ontario Provincial Police.

“That was not unusual for him,” said Bill Dickson, a spokesperson for the OPP.

But this time Palluq did not return.

The next day his kayak was found upside down on the shore, Dickson said.

“Anything is possible. Until we can confirm something, our hope is that he is located, that he made it to shore and is hunkered down somewhere,” Dickson said.

The OPP is asking anyone with information about Palluq to call them at 1-888-310-1122.

Police described him as 5’5″, with long grey hair. He was wearing an oversized grey sweater.

Palluq, who is originally from Igloolik, has lived in the south since 1998.

There, he has continued to carve, using serpentine, marble, whalebone, and walrus tusk and teeth.

In an online biography, Palluq said he began carving ivory and stone at the age of nine, following the tradition passed onto him by his grandfathers, Autut Paliak and Abel Inuksuk.