Brent Reaney
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (July 25/05) - Eighty-five-year-old Arcene Paniyuk sits in bed wrapped in a white comforter while leaning forward to rest his large hands on a pair of pillows.

A hip broken more than two years ago forces him to use a wheelchair, which he says is not good for his mind. But he tries to remain positive and prays when unhappy.

Arcene Paniyuk, 85, celebrated his birthday July 12 in Rankin Inlet. His memories cover the good and the bad, from adventurous polar bear hunts with friends and family, to being stranded on an ice floe for four days.

In an interview given with the help of an interpreter July 13 -- one day after a large birthday gathering for Rankin's second oldest resident -- he told of being unhappy once while stranded on an ice pan for four days after it broke away during a floe edge hunting trip.

Because of his elders' advice, after the ice broke, he made sure the group found the roughest area because it was said to be the strongest.

And sure enough, as the ice around the group began to fall away, only the rough spot remained intact.

They then waited patiently for days until new ice froze to about six inches thick before walking walk back across to safety.

"Being impatient, sometimes it has very bad consequences," he remembers being told, adding those four days on the ice were his "most unhappy time."

Born in 1920 on Southampton Island near the mouth of the Kirchoffer River, Paniyuk's family took the lengthy boat trip to Rankin Inlet in August of 1983 after years in Coral Harbour.

He cannot remember being hungry because members of his community always made sure he had enough to eat.

He fondly thinks back on a hunting trip years ago near Nanuavik, outside Coral Harbour, with Siusarnaat, Mike Bruce, Peter Bruce and Pannuiq.

In a time before polar bear quotas, Paniyuk remembers the group bringing home about 18 bears - one of which was caught using a rope.

After one of the animals would not come out of its den, either Paniyuk or his brother - he does not completely remember - climbed up and threw a rope inside the bear's home.

The plan was to catch the animal by its leg, but the cord ended up around the bear's neck.

As it tightened around the bear's rib cage during a roll down the hill, he believes the bear suffocated to death.

Words for youth

Paniyuk would like to tell his community's youth "not to have any hostility toward others, and not to envy others."

He feels today's adults are too interested in talking on the telephone or watching TV instead of communicating face-to-face.

- translation assistance by Silu Connelly