More accurately, it’s a grenade-tipped harpoon gun, transported from Yellowknife in August by Ullikatalik’s colleagues after the small Inuit hamlet of Taloyoak was granted a tag by the Kitikmeot Regional Wildlife Board to hunt arvik (bowhead whale) — one of only five tags allotted to the territory of Nunavut each year by Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The gun is going back to Yellowknife on the next plane.

Hunters had set out one morning in mid-August by boat, deploying sonars at various points along the coast of James Ross Strait to monitor whale activity. And while the tools of the hunt have evolved, the result was the same: one bowhead whale, expertly dispatched, and about 50,000 kilograms of food, fuel and crafting materials to help sustain the whole community for the next year. Every part of the arvik is used, says Ullikatalik.

An announcement was made soon after the successful hunt via the Taloyoak Umarulirijigut Association Facebook page. Meat and blubber was now available in the community freezer to anyone who asked for it — with priority given to Elders, of course, as is always the way in these parts.

As Ullikatalik tells the story of this season’s successful hunt, more hunters whiz by on skidoos, rifles slung over their backs. October is the tail-end of the fall caribou migration, and locals are keen to catch the last stragglers of the Ahiak caribou herd as the animals make their way back to the barrens and boreal forest north of Great Slave Lake from their summer calving grounds near Taloyoak. Ullikatalik sidetracks from arvik to mention how Inuit often leave the caribou’s antlers where they fall, a mark of respect and gratitude to the animal that has sustained them for thousands of years.

The hamlet itself is a collection of brightly coloured one- and two-storey houses that overlook a bay of deep blue-grey. About 1,000 people now call it home, along with about 2,000 polar bears that patrol the surrounding region. There are no roads in; for most people, the only way in or out is a daily flight with Canadian North — a “milk-run” stopping at the relatively nearby hamlets of Cambridge Bay, Kugaaruk and Gjoa Haven — unless weather means the plane can’t land. For locals willing to brave blizzards and bears, a 150-kilometre skidoo ride over to Gjoa Haven (the nearest of the three) is possible once sea ice has formed.

Ullikatalik’s feelings for his home are echoed throughout the community, passed down from the generations before, who, he says, “put Taloyoak on the map so I could live here.” But when he tries to picture his great-grandchildren enjoying the land the same way he does, doubt enters his mind. For the last 50 years, this paradise of muskox, polar bears, foxes, seals, whales and Arctic char has been under mounting threat. The thinning ice of the nearby Northwest Passage means increased shipping is on the way, and with it the threat of wildlife disruption and oil spills. The mining industry also covets the peninsula and already owns 19 mineral claims ­— including for diamond. And while mining companies promise residents a quick road to prosperity, Ullikatalik says they conveniently leave out the potential social, cultural and environmental costs.

“When I look at Canada, and the whole world, and see what mining does to an environment,” says Ullikatalik, “and hear stories from our cousins down south about how they aren’t able to drink their water because it’s so contaminated… we don’t want that to happen for us and for our caribou.”

But alongside concern, there is also resolve. Ullikatalik and his colleagues at the Taloyoak Umarulirijigut Association have a plan: the Aqviqtuuq Inuit Protected and Conserved Area, the first Inuit-led conservation model of its kind in the world. This proposed area encompasses the entire peninsula of Aqviqtuuq, some 90,000 square kilometres of marine, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems to be patrolled full-time by Guardians (Hapumiyiit in Inuktitut) employed to monitor the health of the land and its wildlife while also keeping the community freezer full.

“Our land and our caribou are healthy at this point,” says Ullikatalik, his voice rising. “We want to keep it that way.”

With WWF’s support, the Taloyoak Umarulirijigut Association has begun to log tangible results. In 2021, Taloyoak won a $451,000 Arctic Inspiration Prize, a grant funded “by the North and for the North” that provides seed money to up to 12 community-led projects each year. The town’s winning project, called Niqihaqut (meaning “our food”), while separate from the Aqviqtuuq project, has become inextricably linked to the proposed protected area. At its centre is a country food cut-and-wrap facility. Having a plant on-site to process traditional Inuit food sourced from the land, including caribou, beluga, ringed seal and char, would help solve one of the greatest challenges the residents of Taloyoak face: food insecurity.

“Even though we’re Inuit, we don’t always have access to country food,” Ullikatalik says grimly. Though wildlife is abundant, hunting equipment is becoming more expensive. And hunters who do get out onto the land have noticed that climate change is altering the landscape. Thinning ice is making hunting more treacherous, and muskox, which didn’t use to spend much time on Aqviqtuuq, are now overpopulated and are pushing the caribou away.

Comparing it to agricultural systems down south, Ullikatalik calls wildlife throughout Aqviqtuuq their “livestock.” The cut-and-wrap facility would allow Taloyoak to properly collect, prepare, store and distribute the food sustainably sourced from that livestock in larger. It could also play a part in wildlife management. The plant will allow the Taloyoak Umarulirijigut Association to hunt overpopulated muskox down to a more balanced number, relieving pressure on Aqviqtuuq’s caribou. With the extra supply of meat, the association can sell its product to Taloyoak residents and other communities around Nunavut at a reasonable price — and even down south in the long term. Once it is built (the community is aiming to have it completed this fall), the association believes the plant will generate $1.9 million in annual revenue, with the money reinvested in cultural programs for the community, and create local, culturally relevant jobs.

Then there’s the “guardian angels.” “That’s what people round here call the Guardians,” says Ullikatalik with a chuckle.

The Guardians are the eyes and ears of the Aqviqtuuq project, a team of five locals led by former Canadian Rangers Lieutenant Abel Aqqaq. They patrol the land and waters of Aqviqtuuq daily, run a DFO-funded marine monitoring program and collect baseline data on marine species biodiversity and abundance in anticipation of increased shipping activity. They monitor caribou populations to better inform the sustainable harvest plan for Niqihaqut. And, perhaps most importantly, they hunt and bring country food back to the community.

What it boils down to for Aqqaq is that he sees the youth involved in the program are happy.

Roger Oleekatalik is one of those youth. Jimmy Ullikatalik’s grandson sits in the library of Netsilik School only a stone’s throw from his grandfather’s Taloyoak Umarulirijigut Association office. He’s eating a plate of frozen caribou lung, stomach lining and fat. Tall and broad shouldered, he’s on the verge of graduating and has a calm, mature air out of place in these lively schoolhouse surroundings. Oleekatalik is one of the lucky ones who has spent time as an Aqviqtuuq youth Guardian. “Our peace is out there. We’re adapted to it,” he explains. “We’re so used to being out on the land. We enjoy it so much that sometimes we don’t even want to go home.”

His eyes light up as he describes his first caribou hunt as a young boy: the chase on skidoo, his father holding the rifle steady and calling him over to pull the trigger for the final shot, the celebrations afterwards with a meal of frozen caribou and the joy on the Elders’ faces when he shared his catch with them. The story has remarkable similarities to the one his grandfather tells of his first hunt.

“Caribou is like our soul food,” Oleekatalik says with a smile.

The previous year, on his 17th birthday, Oleekatalik hunted his first polar bear out on the sea ice. In describing it, he demonstrates an intimate understanding of the animal’s ways through knowledge that has been passed down through generations. He speaks of the polar bear’s tactic of playing dead when first hit, only to leap to ferocious life when its assailant is within reach, and describes the correct angle one should approach at to safely check for any such tricks. It was a rite of passage for him, a boy on the verge of being a man, an Inuk man who now has — through his grandfather’s and father’s tutelage and through his role as a youth Guardian — gained the skills to carry on his peoples’ legacy as protectors of Aqviqtuuq.