The future of Nunavut’s fishery?

Davidee Nuqingaq of Qikiqtarjuaq will work at a good job this summer, thanks to the Baffin Fisheries Coalition’s plan to take greater control of the offshore fishery in waters adjacent to Nunavut – especially the rich turbot grounds of northern Davis Strait.

Nuqingaq, and at least 11 other Inuit from around the Baffin region have signed on for a 30-day stretch aboard the M.V. Inuksuk, the Norwegian-built factory-freezer trawler that the BFC is leasing this year to catch Nunavut’s 4,000-metric-tonne turbot allocation in northern Davis Strait.

“I’m not afraid of being homesick or seasick, but I miss my girlfriend already,” Nuqingaq said.

Like most of the Inuit serving on the M.V. Inuksuk this summer, Nuqingaq passed through a fisheries preparation course at Nunavut Arctic College, where participants took “MED” or “marine emergency duty” instruction, and a pre-sea trawler course.

The BFC, with help from the Kakivak Association and the GN’s Department of the Environment, paid for the training courses.

Nuqingaq said Inuit crew members may choose to sign on for a second 30-day stint once they’ve finished the first one.

Until last year the M.V. Inuksuk was owned by Bjarnar of Iceland (55 per cent) and Royal Greenland (45 per cent.) She now operates under a Canadian-based firm, Naatanaq Fishery Inc., a company formed by its owners.

Known until last year as the Salleq, and registered in Nuuk, Greenland, she’s been rechristened as the M.V. Inuksuk, registered in Iqaluit, and now sails under a Canadian flag.

Finnur Hardarsson of Hafnarfjordur, Iceland, a partner in the Bjarnar firm, was in Iqaluit to help oversee the handover of the vessel to the BFC. The BFC will lease the M.V. Inuksuk for two years, and holds an option to buy her at the end of that period.

Hardarsson said she’s been refitted – in Skagen, Denmark – to meet Canadian standards and has been inspected by federal government officials.

The M.V. Inuksuk also boasts a brand-new turbot processing plant on one of her lower decks. There, with the help of assembly-line machinery, workers will clean, fillet and freeze the fish for shipment to markets in Canada and Greenland. The versatile ship is capable of switching to shrimp processing at short notice.

A huge refrigeration hold in the bowels of the ship is capable of holding at least 500 tonnes of frozen product.

Freshly-caught turbot, a flat groundfish that is also known as “Greenland halibut,” will be packaged in cardboard boxes bearing the BFC’s logo, and a Nunavut-specific marketing slogan: “From the ice cold waters of Nunavut.”

The M.V. Inuksuk put in to Iqaluit last Saturday to pick up new Inuit crew members, and so that BFC’s staff and board members could bring Iqaluit residents and invited guests on board for guided tours.

Officials like Olayuk Akesuk, Nunavut’s minister of the environment; Paul Okalik, Nunavut’s premier; Manasie Audlakiak, the chair of the BFC; Simon Awa, the deputy minister of the environment; and Peter Keenainak of the Qikiqtaaluk Corp. came out to admire the boat – which could be Nunavut-owned in just two years’ time.

Rev. Mike Gardener and Capt. Ron McLean of Iqaluit’s Anglican Church blessed the M.V. Inuksuk before she set off for the turbot grounds off Davis Strait.