Lake Harbour (May 16/05) - Tommy Akavak knows the truth about the land that surrounds him.

The 44-year-old man knows it is beautiful, and also very dangerous.

When Akavak was seven years old, his best friend drowned in front of him after falling through the ice.

This event still haunts him, so much that as he tells the story his words get a bit caught in his throat, he chokes up a little, then continues, hoping that by telling the story again to someone who has never heard it the burden of the horrible memory will lighten.

But it doesn't.

"Someday I'll get over it. But I haven't yet," said Akavak in a phone interview from his home in Kimmirut last week.

There were four of them out on the ice that day, all fairly young boys.

It was 37 years ago, but Akavak still remembers it like it was yesterday.

They were out ptarmigan hunting on the ice close to where the old RCMP building used to be, just a few miles from where the hamlet of Kimmirut stands today.

Akavak's best friend, Pudloo, was really more like an older brother to him.

One minute they were having fun, the next minute the ice cracked and Pudloo fell through.

"The ice was cracking. Unfortunately we couldn't reach him," said Akavak sadly.

Today, Akavak goes out on the water and says he doesn't fear it. He has a 24-foot fibreglass boat and he loves hunting.

Life goes on and, with those memories, quite painfully. But it does go on.

Akavak has four kids of his own now, two boys and two girls.

He is strict with them, but not over-protective.

He works at the visitor's centre in Kimmirut, and has met hundreds of people over the years.

No question about Inuit or the North has ever been too strange for him.

Tourists nowadays do their homework before they come North, he has noticed.

"They have the Internet. They already know a lot before they come here," he said.

Akavak doesn't want to live anywhere else but Kimmirut.

"It's a nice small town," he said. "I get to live in a more traditional community. I get to go dog sledding which is my love," he said. "And it's close to Iqaluit. If I want to see family, I can just drive over on my snowmobile."

It takes him about four hours and 10 gallons of gas to get to Iqaluit from Kimmirut by snowmachine.

The last time he made the trip was early May, when the water was coming up in the Soper Valley and his travelling companion had to help him pull his snowmachine out once during the voyage. Akavak has seen a lot of change in the South Baffin, mostly in people's behaviour.

"There weren't drug or alcohol problems in the past," he said. "It was quieter."