Kathleen Lippa
Northern News Services

Arctic Bay (Sep 08/03) - Lennon Kalluk said he feels like a very fortunate hunter.

On Aug. 30, the 21- year-old hunter caught a double-tusked narwhal.

"It was exciting," Kalluk said. "I was proud."

It could also add a hefty sum to his bank account. Such a catch can fetch big bucks from collectors around the world.

Kalluk was one of about 20 hunters out on the water of Arctic Bay when he came across the rare mammal.

He was out in a small fibreglass boat he borrowed from a man whose son caught a double tusked narwhal two years ago.

"There were three of four killer whales along the shoreline," he recalled.

The hunters eyed them, but wanted narwhal. "We went to check out the narwhal. Check around the tusks," Kalluk said. "Then we went to other groups (of narwhal) and we saw the double tusks."

He grabbed his .303 rifle and started firing.

"It took me four shots to kill it," he said.

With help from fellow hunters, Kalluk tied the narwhal to his boat and dragged it to the beach.

In the excitement of the moment, they didn't measure it. It was enough to fill his family's freezer.

Highly prized tusks

Kalluk stands to make a lot of money from the tusks.

The tusks, measuring about 1.5 metres (five feet) and 1.2 metres (four feet) in length, remained on the beach until last Wednesday when Kalluk planned to clean them with a wire brush. Narwhal tusk sells for roughly $120 to $150 a foot.

He isn't sure how much money he is going to get, but said he plans to sell them on the Internet. Kalluk said he knows of a man from Pond Inlet who sold two nine-foot narwhal tusks for $60,000 over the Internet.

"But that guy's were nine feet," he said.

Talk of the town

Mishak Allurut works at the hamlet office and said it was the talk of the town.

"It's kind of a rare species of narwhal," said Allurut.

He said he's never seen one alive himself, although he has gone narwhal hunting many times.

The two tusks emerge from the mammal's head side by side.

"Most narwhals have two," explained Allurut. "But only one usually grows.

"Only on rare occasions the two grow at the same time.

"It's like a back-up tusk implanted in their skull."

"They are beautiful. Sea-unicorns," Allurut said. Kalluk comes from a big family, with relatives in Resolute, Iqaluit and Grise Fiord.

"They've been calling," he said.

He "doesn't really mind" all the attention he is getting in his community.

"I think all of Arctic Bay knows about it," he said with a laugh.

Kalluk has been hunting all his life. Four years ago he caught a narwhal with a six-foot tusk. "But it was just one," he said.

No one in his large family has ever caught a double tusked narwhal in all their years of hunting.