Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (July 22/02) - At two years of age, Darren Arreak had temper tantrums when his father would go hunting without him.

Rather than let that happen this summer Arreak, now 14, flew from Pond Inlet to Iqaluit to spend the summer with his parents when school wrapped up for the year.

Darren Arreak, 14, took a step towards adulthood earlier this month when he harpooned his first beluga whale. He's holding up a piece of muktaaq from the whale. - Kerry McCluskey/NNSL photo

His dad told him they'd be doing some hunting together.

"I told him he'd catch his first whale," said Kevin Kullualik, Darren's dad. "It came true."

At about 8 a.m. on July 6, near the Bay of Two Rivers in the sea outside Iqaluit, Arreak harpooned his first beluga whale. The mammal was roughly four metres long.

When they spotted the animal, Kullualik told Arreak to throw the harpoon and in the instant it took for the weapon to hit the tail of the whale, the young man took a big step towards adulthood.

Speaking two days after the harvest, Arreak said he feels more Inuk and more like a man.

"I was excited," said Arreak, adding the whale to the growing list of animals he's successfully hunted.

Just as Southern culture use life experiences to mark the dawning of maturity -- getting a driver's licence or first job -- Inuit culture counts certain accomplishments as markers of adulthood.

For generations of Inuit men, catching big game animals like whales, walrus and polar bears is a sign that childhood is being left behind.

Next on the list for Arreak? A polar bear or a walrus.

"He already is a hunter," said Jeannie Arreak-Kullualik, Darren's extremely happy mother.

"Ever since he was a little boy, he's wanted to hunt," she said.

Arreak-Kullualik said she got a call Saturday morning from a friend who'd been radioed by the hunting party. He told her that her son got his first whale and was on his way back to the city.

"I shrieked and yelled," she said, adding that she's also greeting her boy's approaching adulthood with a touch of nervousness.

"It's the most exciting, but the hardest years, the most challenging are upon him," she said.

But for now, Arreak-Kullualik said she's enjoying the constant smile on her son's face and revelling in the role of a proud mother.

"We're all really proud of him. Lots of people have been coming by and we had a feast Saturday night," she said. "We called his grandpa and we're sending him some muktaaq."