PANNIQTUUQ/PANGNIRTUNG
When Nate Dialla aimed and fired a .223 Ruger at a walrus between Iqaluit and Pangnirtung last fall, his successful hit on the animal's jaw marked the first walrus kill for the hunter. He was six at the time.
Nate Dialla, six at the time, stands in front of his first walrus kill between Pangnirtung and Iqaluit in late October. - photo courtesy of Norman Mikes |
"He's very good with a gun," said dad Norman Mike. "He might be a good marksman, I believe. He's at that age and catching a little bigger game than when I was that age."
The hunt came as the result of a plan hatched by Mike's father, Pangnirtung MLA Johnny Mike, when the three went out in the early summer. Johnny Mike wanted to see his grandson catch his first walrus, but none could be found during two days of hunting.
"We came back empty-handed and Nate was a little frustrated," Norman said. "We told him, there's always another time."
Later in the summer, Norman and his brother Ethan decided to take a boat trip to Iqaluit to fill their father's fridge with meat for his time at the legislature, knowing he would be too busy to hunt.
"We decided to go to Iqaluit by boat in the late summer, and I told him he could come along on the way back from Iqaluit," Norman said. They weren't able to head back until October. "We started seeing walrus about 40 miles out of Iqaluit, to 60 miles out of Pang. We were seeing walrus all the way."
At the inlet called Ikkirrasakutaak, Ethan said it was time to hunt.
"We followed them for about 10 minutes until they popped up for air," Norman recalled. "They kept going down and we chased them longer than usual. I told them to go in front of the boat so they would have a better chance of shooting it. That rifle is kind of heavy for a six-year-old boy. He fired it and shot it in the jaw. The walrus couldn't go under water. It kept staying up, and I told them it's time to put a harpoon in."
Despite a few attempts, the harpoon wouldn't penetrate the walrus' skin.
"We commonly say the point of the harpoon just slipped away, but there's a word in Inuktitut common when we make a mistake, and that moment it happened, he said 'Pallaatuk,' meaning when you slip and fall, and that's what it is," he said.
"We were surprised at his age he knew what to say. My brother shouted out that he was too young to know that word."
The walrus was dying and losing buoyancy. Ethan grabbed the harpoon and brought in the animal, smiling broadly as he did. Nate was pretty happy, too.
"At that moment, he couldn't say a word from his happiness," Norman said. "We had a big high-five afterwards."
It was a proud tale for Nate's grandfather, who regaled his fellow legislators with the story as an example of education in the real world.
"The teaching of traditional skills starts from home as well as outside of one's home," Johnny Mike said Nov. 5 in the legislative assembly.
He got to benefit from the kill, as some meat was sent by air back to Iqaluit.
"We took the rest of the meat and we still have frozen meat up to today out of it," Norman said.
His brother Ethan caught two other walruses on that trip and they caught six more three weeks later, sharing their bounty with Pangnirtung residents.
