by Jennifer Pritchett
Northern News Services

NNSL (Oct 29/97) - Catherine Pilakapsi is lucky to be alive.

The Rankin Inlet elder is one of four who were forced to spend three days huddled in a tent on the barrens, 25-kilometres north of the community during the recent hurricane-force winds that rocked the region.

"It was scary -- the wind was so loud it hurt our ears," said Pilakapsi, who will remember the ordeal as the worst experience of her life.

She left Rankin Inlet early Saturday morning with her husband Louis, a hamlet councillor. The couple ran into bad weather on Monday after they spent two days catching trout and hunting ptarmigan at Parallel Lake.

Travelling across the barrens, they passed Jeff Manitok and Titaaq Konaksiutiksak, two Rankin Inlet residents who had also been hunting. Despite the blowing snow that caused poor visibility, these men, both in their early 20s, followed their tracks and found the Pilakapsis a short while later. Together the four decided they would look for Senator Willie Adams' cabin where they planned to wait out the storm.

"It was snowing so we decided we'd look for Willie's shack, but it was snowing and hail -- we couldn't see anything," she said. "We couldn't see the trail and I lost Louis."

Moments later, she found her husband who had been right in front of her, hidden by the snow. Then they decided to stop and sent up their canvas tent to protect them from the storm. They parked their Hondas around the tent to keep it from blowing over.

"There was not enough snow to make an igloo," said Pilakapsi. "The tent didn't move -- it was frozen solid. Before it was set or frozen, it shook, (but) it didn't rip."

They were all cold and wet, and Pilakapsi wore her wind pants and kamiks to bed because it was so frigid. They had a CB radio, but it had gotten wet and wouldn't work. They did, however, have lots of food and ate fish and ptarmigan while they were stranded inside the tent for three days.

Jeff Manitok said the worst was the howling of the wind for a couple of days and the fact they couldn't go home.

"It was really loud and kept popping our ears kind of like when you're on an airplane," he said.

Pilakapsi said the winds were the worst she'd ever seen, but her husband made her feel safer. She was more worried about the families of the two young men who were waiting for their return.

"The two boys were getting scared -- they asked me to pray," she said. "(I prayed that) God would help us be saved and this gave us faith to be OK. We're very lucky to be alive."

She said her prayers were answered.

Like Pilakapsi, Manitok said it was the worst experience of his life, one he won't soon forget. He will always remember the way he celebrated when he finally got out of the tent three days after the storm began.

Manitok, who celebrated his twenty-second birthday the day after he came back to Rankin Inlet, said he's happy to be alive.

The group were among more than a dozen hunters across the Keewatin who were stranded on the land during the storm.