Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (June 17/02) - The right to hunt is a personal one for Aseena Allurut. She remembers how difficult it was for her mother after her father passed away.

She remembers that even in small communities like Arctic Bay and Nanisivik, her mother -- who worked at Nanisivik Mine at the time -- had a tough time finding country food to put on the table.

Allurut wants to make sure that never happens in her home in Iqaluit.

"I don't know how to hunt. I wasn't brought up to be a hunter," says Allurut, an executive secretary to a cabinet minister at the Nunavut legislative assembly.

"I want to assign my rights to (my husband) so he can do the hunting for us, so he can provide seal and caribou meat and fish for us."

A non-Inuk resident of Iqaluit, Allurut's husband, John Thomas, has lived in Nunavut for 12 years and has learned from Inuit hunters how to navigate on land and sea. He knows the different Inuktitut names of animals for each season and only takes what he needs to feed his family.

While Allurut's right to transfer her harvesting rights to her husband is guaranteed by article of the Nunavut land claim, she says she and other women in Iqaluit are having convincing the Amarok Hunters and Trappers Association.

HTAs in each community are responsible for policies and procedures governing how Inuit can transfer their rights to another Inuk or a non-Inuk spouse.

The original intent was to ensure Inuit unable to hunt for themselves had access to country food, but Allurut said the HTA is making it difficult for women to do just that.

"The big worry is that we want our husbands to be hunting for animals with quotas," said Allurut.

Big-game animals like polar bears, whales and walruses carry quotas, meaning there is limit to the number that can be harvested. The problem reportedly stems from fears that if Inuit women assign their rights to their non-Inuit husbands, fewer animals will be left for Inuit hunters.

Species like caribou, seal and fish currently have no quotas and Inuit are free to harvest what they need. Non-Inuit can also harvest small-game species, but they are subject to both land claim and territorial regulations.

Fears unwarranted

Allurut says Inuit women aren't interested in letting their non-Inuit husbands hunt big game -- they only want them to hunt small animals.

"If I want someone to go out for (big game), my boys can go out with other Inuit hunters," she says. "If I really want polar bear meat, I can just go over to another family's house and eat polar bear meat with them." she adds.

"This is what the other ladies are saying, too. Even though we have those rights, we won't give them away to our husbands. We don't want to take anything away from Inuit hunters."

Allurut says the HTA wants complete control over wildlife issues -- so much so she says she feels like they are ignoring the rights of women.

"It felt like they didn't want to listen to us because we are women and hunting is a man's thing," says Allurut. "Hunting is a man's thing, but we do have our rights."

The women tried on a few occasions to get their voices heard, but Allurut says it wasn't until last month that anyone listened.

The turning point came, she says, when she and other concerned women turned out for an HTA members-only meeting only to find the association had already drawn up proposed assignment procedures and were asking members to vote.

As they raised questions at the meeting, Allurut says other hunters and elders began to listen and started to support them.

HTA chair David Ell says he does his best to listen to all members' concerns and recalls that the topic was an extremely controversial one.

"That topic is kind of hot. Any way you try to do something -- somebody is not going to like it," says Ell.

It appears however, that a resolution -- or at least increased understanding of the issue is on the horizon. A two-day workshop, scheduled for June 25-26 in Iqaluit, has been organized to educate HTA members on assignment.

Rosemary Cooper, another female Inuk married to a non-Inuk in Iqaluit, says she is looking forward to learning more about the issue during the session.

Cooper says that the large number of women who attended last month's meeting meant they could have used their power to sway the vote, effectively quashing the procedures proposed by the HTA. But she says they decided instead to lobby for more education.

"The majority of participants at the Parish Hall were women. We could easily have tilted the vote, but we wanted to get more people involved," says Cooper.

"There's still a lot of misunderstanding about what this article is about. We emphasized that we need this workshop so we can get educated on this," she said.

Leaders involved in the land claim -- including Paul Quassa and John Amagoalik -- will be asked to speak during the workshop. Participants will also go over Article 5.7.34 in detail and will consider various options for procedures.

A second attempt to hold a vote on the policy will be organized after the workshop concludes.