Stephanie McDonald
Northern News Services
Published Monday, January 21, 2008
NUNAVUT - Only 500 of the about 9,600 sealskins on offer were sold at the Fur Harvesters Auction in North Bay, Ont. on Jan. 7.
Ninety-nine per cent of those skins originated in Nunavut. The dealers that did attend the auction were resistant to paying $60 a skin, the average price paid for the past few years.
Arviat hunters Pierre Koomak, left, and Frank Nutarasungnik stand over a dead seal. Bans on Canadian sealskins and products contributed to low sales at the most recent auction in North Bay. - photo courtesy of Wendy L. Douglas/WWF Canada |
"Right now there is a glut on the market," said Ed Ferguson, a grader with the Fur Harvesters Auction, the organization in charge of promoting the sale of the sealskins. "Until that can be used up and the fresh goods start to move, then we're kind of stuck."
Atlantic Marine Products from Newfoundland has bought the bulk of the seal skins from the Fur Harvesters in recent years.
This time around, they didn't attend the auction or purchase any of the pelts.
"There's a high amount of inventory left from last year because of the high prices that have been paid," said Dion Dakins, director of sales and marketing with Atlantic Marine Products.
Ferguson said a new strategy is needed.
"It is a bit of a concern, but we just have to change our attitude and try to find different customers rather than relying on the three or four major buyers that do show up each year," he said. "We have to go back to smaller guys."
That means focusing energy on marketing to Canadian dealers and traditional buyers who haven't been in the market of late, such as Denmark and Greenland, he suggested.
The poor auction results were also partly a result of the strong Canadian dollar, according to Wayne Lynch, director of fisheries and sealing with the GN's Department of Economic Development and Transportation.
However, the recent slump in sales is no cause for concern, Lynch said.
"On the surface it does seem alarming but we're not concerned because we do know there's markets for 3,000 (sealskins), at least 2,000 back here in Nunavut," he said.
For now, skins will be bought and collected as normal for the May auction in North Bay, Lynch said.
Any reduction in prices paid to hunters would only come following an evaluation after the May auction if the market doesn't rebound, he added.
The Department of Economic Development and Transportation uses a grid scale when deciding how much a hunter is paid for a sealskin.
Depending on the skin's clarity, colour, damages and size, a hunter can receive between $15 and $60. The average price received is between $50 and $55. If the skins sell for a much higher price at auction, a second bonus payment is sent to the hunters.
Although it has received much international publicity, a ban on sealskins and seal products by European countries like Holland and Belgium is not a major factor at this point, according to Dakins.
"The impact of bans haven't been felt," he said, adding that it will take a few years for the bans to make a difference.
Yet the prospect of a European-wide ban concerns Inuit, according to Tommy Kilabuk, chairperson of the Ikajutit Hunters and Trappers Association. He said hunters in Arctic Bay felt the effects of the 1983 European-wide ban on young harp seals.
"It will have an impact on us again. Europeans are good at that," said an impassioned Kilabuk.
"I bet they buy cow hide, sheep hide, and all the other hides the world is offering by the thousands. And here we are living in the hardest climate in the world and this is what they do to us ... I bet the guy who is banning them is wearing a leather jacket."
No matter what decision foreign countries make regarding Canada's seal products and skins, Kilabuk said that Inuit would continue to hunt them.
"It's just part of us ... seal is always going to be our food. It's just who we are."
The close to 500 skins that did sell at will be sent back to the territory for Nunavut Arctic college's fur production design program in Iqaluit.
