Cambridge Bay (Mar 21/05) - May Hikoalok of Cambridge Bay is 71 years old and loves to go hunting. The trouble is these days she can't because she doesn't have enough ammunition for her guns.

Hikoalok can't buy ammo because her firearms licence has expired. Without that certificate she can't buy ammunition at the Northern or Co-op store in town.

Inuit have a right to hunt without a fee under the Nunavut Land Claim Agreement.

However, no one in Canada can buy ammunition for their guns without the proper licence.

Getting a new licence has been frustrating to say the least for people like Hikoalok, a unilingual Inuinnaqtun elder who must get friends and family to buy ammo for her these days. But that isn't always possible. So she ends up sitting at home, angry, confused and desperately in need of her country food diet.

"I have to get bullets for her to go duck hunting," said Hikoalok's daughter Bertha Tootiak who translated for her mom last week.

"It's hard for her. It's the new process they are doing with the guns and legislation to get the bullets. Right now she wants to stay out on the land for a while, but she can't."

Hikoalok says she got the run-around when trying to apply for a licence.

"We don't know where to get the application from," said Tootiak. "We went to the police station, they said go to the post office."

At the post office they said they didn't have the applications.

If that isn't bad enough, Hikoalok couldn't even take the mandatory firearms test to get her licence, called a Firearms Acquisition Certificate, because the course that offered it at Nunavut Arctic College in town didn't have an Inuinnaqtun translator.

Hikoalok is not alone. She says there are between 30 and 40 elders in the Cambridge Bay area who are in the same predicament.

Annie Anavilok is another gung-ho hunter in Cambridge Bay not happy with all the licence red tape.

"I'm a hunter and trapper, and I'm having a terrible time getting ammunition," said Anavilok.

Anavilok hunts "everything," including caribou, muskox, seals, and geese. She said she is really hampered by the new application process for renewing her recently expired licence.

"I sent (my application) in alright, but I haven't heard back yet."

Elders met with Premier Paul Okalik about this last month.

The premier expressed a desire to help them, but not much can change if Nunavut doesn't get its own firearms licensing and registration office.

That office is run by the federal government. There is no word yet if Nunavut will get its own office.