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CORAL HARBOUR - Three young men had the chance to develop their traditional skills on the land near Coral Harbour this past month.

John Pameolik helped three young men from Coral Harbour improve their traditional skills during four days on the land this past month. - photo courtesy of Noel Kaludjak

Bradley Kaludjak, Darren Eetuk and Stuart Angootealuk spent four days on the land learning from elder John Pameolik, Noel Kaludjak and Darryl Nakoolak.

The group was located at Cleveland Lake, about 154.5 km north of Coral Harbour.

The project was part of the Coral men's group's and Kivalliq Counselling Services' efforts to improve communication and traditional skill sets in Coral.

Noel said the three young men enjoyed the experience, worked hard and did very well at their tasks.

He said among the skills they learned were how to travel properly in, or near, zero visibility, camp, find a good spot for fishing nets, drill holes and set nets under the ice.

"They learned a lot during those four days, including how to work together, help each other and travel properly in a line," said Noel.

"We picked John as our leader, so we followed him wherever he went, making sure we always had visible contact with him.

"We stayed close to each other and didn't stray from the group.

"We were very disciplined in what we did out there."

Noel said the three young men were eager to learn new skills on the land.

He said you could tell by their body language they were into it, especially learning the proper way to set nets.

"We taught them a lot about ice fishing with nets and they soaked it all up, especially using an ice crawler.

"You drill a hole big enough to shove your piece of wood (ice crawler) through with rope attached and drag it along for about 50 yards (45.72 metres).

"You have to find it from the top of the ice, which was about five feet (1.52 metres) thick, and then pull it and the net out through another hole drilled in front of it.

"We got about 200 char, so we shared some with the community and saved some to dry for dried pipsi."

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