TUKTOYAKTUK
Hunters and trappers like Jim Elias of Tuktoyaktuk are the ones keeping harvesting traditions alive.

Tuktoyaktuk's Jim Elias won the highest sales and highest number of pelts awards for the Beaufort Delta through the Genuine Mackenzie Valley Fur program this year. It's the second year in a row Elias has received the awards. - photo courtesy of Jim Elias

Elias was nine years old when his father began teaching him how to hunt and trap - knowledge he is now passing on to his own children.

His skills on the land recently led to Elias earning the highest sales and highest number of pelts awards for the Beaufort Delta through the Genuine Mackenzie Valley Fur program for the second year in a row.

"You learned your way around and learned what the best places are," he said of his early years on the land with his father. "We trapped different species."

The pair trapped mostly foxes until the 80s when the market for fox fur diminished.

"The industry dropped to just about nothing," he said. "Then the prices started coming up for marten. That's what I'm trapping nowadays."

He likes to think of teaching his four children, now aged 13 to 19, how to hunt and trap as equipping them with a backup plan.

"It's good to know something that's always there to fall back on if you ever fell onto hard times," he said.

His 19-year-old daughter has been harvesting polar and grizzly bears since she was about 17 and his 15-year-old son has been doing the same since he was 10.

Elias spends part of each season trapping furs before moving on to hunting bears. He said doing both not only supplements his income, but also allows him to demonstrate to his children the techniques involved in both activities.

"I usually quit trapping early then I switch over to hunting the bears to help with my income and to show my family the traditional way of my hunting," he said.

Elias said he sometimes worries about what the future holds for harvesters. He said with climate change and other factors putting pressure on polar bear populations, it's only a matter of time before hunting quotas are even more restricted than they are today.

"It's a real dying thing here," he said. "I figure in the next 10 or 20 years, we won't be able to hunt polar bears."

But, Elias said he also believes polar bears are far more capable of dealing with their change habitat than some people give them credit for.

"I think they're quite adaptable, like us people up here," he said.

When he is not harvesting, Elias works for E. Gruben's Transport.

"I try and (harvest) full time, but I have to compensate between working and being out on the land," he said.

This year's trapper's awards were announced on Oct. 9. Categories included highest sales, most pelts, and the senior and junior trappers of the year.