TUKTOYAKTUK - After years spent hunting whales off the coast of Tuktoyaktuk, spotting them was no big deal for Lucky and Enoch Pokiak.

Enoch Pokiak uses big-eye binoculars aboard the Western Patriot seismic vessel in 2008. - photo courtesy of KAVIK-AXYS Inc.

The brothers returned this summer from sailing the Beaufort Sea on an expedition with BP Exploration Company, during which time they were on the lookout for belugas, bowheads and polar bears.

BP hired the Pokiaks and a group of other Inuvialuit to work as marine mammal observers to ensure the company's activities for its Pokak 3D Seismic Program in July 2009 didn't interfere with sea-life habitat.

Enoch, 27, had done the job the previous summer. He thought his older brother Lucky, 30, would also enjoy observing natural habitats aboard the ship

But in the month before they set off, ready for 38 days of 12-hour shifts scouting on the sea with Enoch on the Viking Vision and Lucky on the company's smaller supply vessel, they went hunting.

"I caught two belugas," Enoch said.

The brothers go whaling every year around break-up and freeze-up at Reindeer Point with their father, Randall "Boogie" Pokiak, and their uncles and cousins.

"We were hunting for food most of our lives," said Lucky.

"We used to have a whaling camp with my dad out across on Richard's Island, but now we just get our whales and bring them home and work on them at my dad's smokehouse," he added.

"For a whale you need more than a few people to work on it. I can't go out with just me and my brother and come home."

Whaling and marine mammal observation both require spotting whales, but the similarities end there, Lucky said.

"It's a job, so that's the difference about it. You know, you're out there to work and you've got a certain schedule to work. Usually for whale hunting we wait for the weather."

Though people don't rely on muktuk as much anymore, it's still a staple in many homes and elders in the community who can't hunt for themselves anymore often request it.

"People are always asking for it so that just gets you motivated to go out and get it, whatever it is you're trying to hunt," Lucky said, adding he likes knowing he can use his hunting skills to provide for his family.

"We've been doing it so much we're just kind of used to it, I suppose. You're just happy and thankful that you got what you needed, and almost proud of yourself that you've got some good food that everybody wants."