Simon's Seal

Rolling out the story

My name is Simon Kadlutsiak ᓴᐃᒪᓐ ᑲᑦᓗᑦᓯᐊᒃ. I am from Hall Beach, which is a flat land that we call Amiituq ᐊᒦᑐᖅ. Hall Beach is the best place for arctic char and walrus; we make igunaq ᐃᒍᓇᖅ there. Igunaq is fermented walrus, and it is delicious, and it gives you energy. If you eat this in the wintertime, it can heat you up to four to six hours. In the summertime, we hunt the walrus, kill it and bury it in the ground; we come back in the wintertime to dig it up, to eat it, and we use a crow bar to get it out. It usually takes around four hours to dig it up, depending on the snow. We can sell a big piece of igunaq for six to seven hundred dollars; people order it from different communities in Nunavut.

Because in the winter time we go somewhere about fifty miles into the land, we build an igloo. In the nighttime we look into the sky, and we follow the star. The North Star ᐅᓪᓗᕆᐊᕐᔪᐊᒃ. We find caribou, after dark we go home. When people follow this star, good things happen, and you find rich land - polar bear, caribou, wolf, everything. People still believe this, people still use this star. It’s our compass. My story is about life in the snow, and I am telling it on this stone.

My grandson is five years old, and lives in Iqaluit. I love him, I want to teach my grandson about my good life, how to hunt and how to look after himself. I want to teach him about carving, about the Inuit and the Inuktitut language. I want to try to teach him about my life. He understands.