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KIMMIRUT/LAKE HARBOUR - Appa Josephie moved to Kimmirut from Iqaluit in 1977 and the land around the community has taken care of him ever since.

"There are more places to go hunt," he said. "You can hunt the animals more closely here."

Appa Josephie has called Kimmirut home since 1977. He hunts as much as he can and particularly likes hunting caribou, seals and getting out on the sea in the summer. - Herb Mathisen/NNSL photo

Born in Iqaluit in 1945, Josephie took a one-way flight to Kimmirut for $40 in 1975, and the hunting and fishing were so good, he had to stay.

"The hunting is better," he said, adding it's cheaper too. With the price of gas rising, hunters do not have to travel so far to get out on the land.

A man of the land, Josephie hunts all sorts of animals.

"I like fishing out on the river," he said of the Soper Lake and the falls. "The cod stay there all year long."

One of his favourite animals to hunt are caribou - "You have to get up close," he said.

"I like hunting seals, on the ice and open water."

He said he really enjoyed getting out on the sea and tries to do so as much as he can.

"I don't hunt in the sea too much," he admitted though. "I don't have a boat."

Sometimes you don't even have to go outside Kimmirut to get up close with the wildlife. Josephie has many stories about different animals wandering into town.

"One guy caught four wolves," he said. "They go close to the dump."

He added the man set the traps outside the dump earlier this spring.

Living in Kimmirut is not without danger. Four polar bears came into town last September, he said.

His next-door neighbour called him over once after a polar bear had wandered into his backyard and he shot it.

"He called me to pick up some polar bear meat," he said.

"A lot of whales come here," he said, adding someone got a narwhal earlier this year.

In the winter, Josephie takes a two-hour ride by snowmachine to hunt belugas from an ice-flow.

Josephie also traps foxes, hunts walrus and enjoys making rabbit stew. In the winter, Josephie takes the Soper Lake trail to Iqaluit - eight hours by snow machine - to visit his brother.

He said Iqaluit has changed a great deal since he was born.

"There were not many houses, very few," he said.

He learned to hunt when he lived in Iqaluit.

"I used to go out with a .22 round rifle, hunting ptarmigan, rabbits and sometimes seals," he said.

He spoke about one of the lone buildings: the Hudson Bay store in Apex, which had no stove at the time.

"You had to wear your parka inside, it was so cold," he said.

When he was seven or eight, he saw his first tree - a Christmas tree inside the store.

"I got really close," he said. "It smells good."

He tells a funny tale of his brother not being able to read a package at the Hudson Bay store. It was a package of flavoured crystals and his brother mixed them with water and drank it.

"It was Jell-o," said Josephie, laughing. "He didn't know."