Yellowknife (Jan 10/05) - Trappers across the North should be happy with this season's surging fur pelt prices.

Mark Downie, chief executive officer with Fur Harvesters Auction Inc. said the price for ring seal pelts was up 60 per cent over last year's average price at a December auction in North Bay, Ont.

At the Dec. 17 sale, pelts went for an average of $67.02. By comparison, in 2003 ring seal pelts sold for an average of $44.64.

The trapping industry across the North is worth close to $1 million per year with close to 500 trappers earning at least part of their living in the trade, said Larry Simpson, senior advisor for fisheries and sealing the with the Department of the Environment in the Government of Nunavut.

"It was excellent with the highest prices ever," he said after attending the North Bay sale. "Averages were over $70 for ring seal so it's a good trend."

The December auction is the primary auction for Nunavut trappers, said Simpson, adding the industry has recovered nicely to pre-2003 levels, when average prices were at $63 in 2002 and $67 in 2001. In the outposts such as Pangnirtung and Qikiqtarjuaq, hunting and trapping are still the primary ways of life.

"In the mid-1970s the market collapsed (but) they kept their skills going," he said. "In other communities a lot of those skills were lost."

Simpson explained when a trapper has a pelt, they sell it to the territorial wildlife officers. The Government of Nunavut pays the freight to get it to market with each hunter getting, "a final payment based on how many skins were submitted."

In the past couple of years the government has actually lost money, but that doesn't bother Simpson.

"We're not in this to make money," he said, adding a follow up payment to hunters is being considered for this past sale because results were so favourable.

He said the value of the seal hunt in Nunavut can't be underestimated.

"These people get skins," to sell all the while putting food on the table by way of the meat, he said.

If the seal hunt suddenly ended in Nunavut, Simpson said territory-wide it would add $5 million to what residents collectively spend on groceries.

Trappers in the NWT will be happy with prices and demand for wolverine, wolves and marten, said Fur Harvesters CEO Downie.

The next big fur sale is expected to take place in Vancouver Feb. 22-23.

That is when most of the product from the western Arctic will be sold.

The average price for a marten pelt is expected to be $65, while wolverine and wolf pelts should run between $250-$325, said Downie.

Lynx pelts should average close to $175 a pelt and white fox pelts should sell for close to $25, he said.