Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (Nov 27/02) - Youth in Rankin Inlet are getting hooked on the opportunity to learn how to master the use of ice jiggers.

The program started to take shape this past month when the Pulaarvik Kablu Friendship Centre sponsored a course on how to make ice jiggers to set fishing nets under the ice.

A total of five participants took the course from instructor Paul Sanertanut at the Nunavut Arctic College trade shop.

After the course wrapped up, the centre's youth program co-ordinator, Noah Tiktak, began talking with staff at local schools to take the program to the next step.

"We were able to set up a program where we could take a different group of students out on the land every second day," says Tiktak.

"We started on Nov. 6 and we've been going steadily since then."

The students spend the day learning how to use an ice jigger properly.

They leave about 9:30 a.m. and return in the late afternoon.

The youth are enjoying the experience, with an average of eight students from Maani Ulujuk middle school making each trip.

"The response has been great. The youth just love it. The teachers had to tell the students that they can only go once, so a different group gets to go every time.

"A number of the students who already took part in the program wanted to keep going with the different groups, but that would be too many going at once and they'd miss too much school work."

Led by elder Honore Itigaitok and assisted by Arsene Manilak, Thomas Tiktak Jr. and Daniel Itigaitok -- the trips to Diane Lake are meeting with various levels of success when it comes to actually catching fish.

Some days the group brings back seven or eight, other days nothing.

Honore says the students really enjoy themselves out on the land and it's important they learn as many traditional skills as they can.

"The kids often seem to come together when they get the opportunity to learn and spend time with an elder," says Honore. "Programs like this, and others like it, are important because the youth learn skills they can use to gather food and survive."