Karen Mackenzie
Northern News Services
Published Monday, January 21, 2008

PANGNIRTUNG - Preliminary designs for a small craft harbour in Pangnirtung will be complete in a couple months - now all that's needed is the money to pay for it.

"It's still unfunded as far as the feds go, but it's a priority and we are working to do what we can," said John Hawkins, director of transportation policy and planning for the Government of Nunavut.

The first phase of engineering studies for a proposed $7.8 million fishing wharf just got underway, and should be wrapped up by Mar. 31.

Funded in part by the GN and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), the study will establish the size, angle and features of the structure.

If the funding is announced in the next few months, as the GN hopes it will be, construction could begin in 2009.

"But that's getting difficult now," Hawkins said.

Pangnirtung was one of seven communities recommended for improved fishing infrastructure in a 2004 report by Nunavut's Department of Economic Development and Transportation to the DFO.

The other six communities are Clyde River, Qikiqtarjuaq, Pond Inlet, Chesterfield Inlet, Repulse Bay and Kugaaruk.

Pangnirtung was given top priority because of its fish plant, according to Hawkins.

As of last week, there was still no sign that money for the wharf was on the way. According to a representative of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, discussion of the proposal has not reached a conclusion, and no deadline has been set to do so.

"It's something that most communities down south would have gotten 50 years ago," said Pangnirtung Fisheries plant manager Donnie Cunningham. "It never seems to get the priority it requires to be put on the front burner, and that's what we're going to try and do over the next few months."

While Pangnirtung does have a partial breakwater and small wharf, it doesn't offer much protection and the wharf is only accessible at half and high tide.

This means that unloading the annual sealift of turbot from the Baffin Fisheries Coalition (BFC) takes a week instead of a day, costing time and money for both the trawler and the local crew, according to Cunningham.

"Four hundred tonnes has to be all unloaded by a boat anchored in the fiord and offloaded one pallet at a time in small boats, run to shore, unloaded off the small boat, and then delivered to our plant by truck," he said.

The tides allow for only two six-hour shifts a day, often at odd hours, he added.

"Last November was the last big load, we had to cancel one night because the winds got too high and these small boats just can't handle these kinds of high winds...in the darkness, with the ice in the water," Cunningham said.

The plant employs between 20 to 40 people year-round, and buys char from about 20 to 25 local fishermen throughout the year.

Its main product is turbot fillets, of which it processes about 500 tonnes a year.

"With the lack of jobs in the whole of Nunavut, a fish plant in the community is a big thing," said Jacopie Maniapik, interim president of BFC.

With an improved wharf, the community could land a lot more fish over the summer months, he said.

Nancy Veevee, one of two plant supervisors, said she thinks any improvement to the plant's work will benefit the community.

Veevee, who has worked at the plant for 10 years, said there are a number of people on staff who have been there just as long or longer.

"The younger ones not in school can have this job, (they) can have something during the day working here," she said.