Lynn Lau
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Feb 11/02) - Seal hunters planning their next season can look forward to sealskin prices that are at their highest level in decades.

At the December Fur Harvesters Auction sale in North Bay, Ont., sealskins from the NWT sold for an average price of $60 -- 45 per cent higher than in 2000, and double the 1999 price.

The best skins sold for as high as $92 -- a $34 increase over last year.

The NWT sold 1,339 sealskins at the auction, amounting to $72,000 in sales, under the Nunavut Inuit brand name.

Nunavut sold close to 5,000 skins -- the total sales figure was not available for Nunavut.

The prices surprised even Fred Glover, the marketing manager for the Fur Harvesters Auction.

"In our prior sale, in December 2000, I thought the price had peaked. But boy, were we surprised when we saw the numbers."

He says the last time sealskins fetched such a price was in the early '70s, before animal rights activists took the bottom out of the market with public relations campaigns against seal hunting. Now it appears the market is finally making a comeback.

"I go to the fur fairs around the world, and particularly last year, in Moscow the sealskin jackets were extremely popular," he says.

It also doesn't hurt that there are relatively few hides on the market, and new tanning techniques have produced a lighter, more pliable end product, Glover says.

The Fur Harvesters Auction is one of three auction houses in North America that deals with wild furs. It handles all the sealskins from the NWT, and most of Nunavut's. About 95 per cent of the sealskins sold at the auction are exported to Europe.

In the North, seal hunters were glad to hear of the turnaround in their industry.

In Sachs Harbour, John Keogak says the better prices might allow him to spend more time on the land, doing what he loves to do -- hunt seals.

He got about 30 seals last year to feed to his dog team, but he says the prices for skins had been so low that it wasn't worth his time to prepare the hides and sell them.

"When I heard the prices, I just lit up," he says. "I thought, I'm going to be out the whole summer. I'll be out as soon as the water opens."

In Holman, seal hunter David Kuptana says the prices are a good sign, especially since the price of gas has also been going up. "If people hear the price is going up, there's going to be a lot of happy people around here," he says.

"We're going to hunt more if we hear the prices were up. There's people with no jobs and they do a lot of hunting."

Kuptana got about 150 seals last year. He says he hunts primarily to provide meat for his family and his dog team, but he'll appreciate the extra money the skins bring in.

Sealskin prices are at the highest level in decades and hunters can't wait to get onto the ice.

Most seal hunters sell their skins at the end of each season to the government. Under NWT and Nunavut fur programs, hunters get a fixed price of $30 for each pelt.

The territorial governments provide a subsidy when the price has been low, and absorb the surplus when the price has been higher.

Because of the high prices at the December auction, the GNWT revised its sealskin program and will soon send hunters the difference between the purchase price and market value.

Nunavut's Department of Sustainable Development is in the process of reviewing its rules. Carey Bonnell, director of fisheries and sealing in Iqaluit, said that Nunavut hunters may be paid the difference.

While high prices may be good news for hunters, Iqaluit seamstress Rannva Simonsen worries about the effect on crafters and seamstresses.

"I've been starting to buy raw skins to send for tanning myself," she says.

"I usually try to get them wholesale, and the cheapest I ever got it from a tannery was $60 each a year ago. Now I've heard that if you buy wholesale that they're closer to $100."

Simonsen says the government should start a program to help crafters get sealskins. "The problem is they do a service for the hunters, but not the sewers, because no skins come back. The government could be doing that if they want to support the whole industry."

"It's just like underdeveloped countries that just sell raw materials, when they could be developing the resource more to get more money and making more work for the women.

"Only if there's much more skins than can be used in the North should they go to the auction."