Winter hunt looks for seals popping up from hiding places

HARLEY SUNDOWN

April 28, 2008 at 9:29AM AKST

For The Tundra Drums

In February, I went out on my first seal-hunting trip of the winter. No one had gone out yet, so there was the question of "where’s the ocean?"

My iluq (cousin) and I went out by snowmachine on a nice, sunny, clear, calm day thinking, where would be the best place to find the ocean? After north or east winds, we usually have a bumpy ride because the wind creates little drifts we call kengaruaqs or small noses.

It wasn’t bad that day we went out as we averaged 20-30 miles per hour out to the end of the mountains.

We got out to the sea ice about 10 miles out and we could see smoke rising off the ice up ahead. That usually indicates water is nearby. We also look for anything blue or dark, and something looked visible miles ahead.

Being the first ones out is always an adventure because we have ice we call lliikaun or young ice attached to older ice. This type of ice we have to constantly check because safety depends on the age of the ice. Sometimes we need to ice pick every few miles to confirm our safety.

We made it out to the water, and was it ever so pretty. We were the first, and it’s exciting to be the first of the year to set foot on the ice edge. As we waited, the tide was coming in and when the tide comes in strong, the seals act strangely, popping up usually once and never popping up again.

If they do pop up, it’s usually farther away. Soon, ice we saw far away got closer and closer till it hit the edge of the shore ice, covering up the water. I guess since the ice is coming in, seals may not want to be trapped in shore ice so they are not seen for the whole time of high tide.

It wasn’t till hours later, as we watched a pond that was not covered, did the ice finally go out around 6:30 pm. During that time, as the ocean ice separates from the shore ice, the seals start popping up all around the edge.

From wherever they were hiding, they pop up around the current, which sometimes curls around making eddies around the channel, which is always easy to detect, because thicker ice has piled up around the shallows and the channel ice is usually smooth.

It was getting dark, so we were getting the canoe ready to head home. The sun was almost at the bottom of the horizon when a seal popped up right 100 feet west of us. As my cousin was pulling his starter on the snowmachine, I shot the seal merainaku or with no water splashing around the seal. That’s a Yupik way of bragging, without bragging about how good a shot you are.

The other time we usually enjoy shooting seals is when the tide starts coming in. When we shoot the seal, the incoming tide usually delivers the seal right to you so we don’t have to canoe out.

The next part of seal hunting in the winter is probably the hairiest part for me because it may be a little too cold for outboard engines to start, so we go out to get them by canoe.

At the same time, the tide is going out so the seal gets further away faster as you canoe out. Since we are bulked up for the cold, we never bring out a life preserver to prevent us from drowning.

We have almost no chance of surviving if our canoe should ever tip over because the current would be too strong to swim against.

When we get to the seal, we usually have two hooks we use to take it. One is a smaller hook popular to Scammon Bay hunters because it is like a halibut hook that has a very small, sharp point. This type of hook always catches the skin of the seal and holds it till we can slip the larger hook onto the seal’s head.

The larger hook we have attached to a rope and hold it in our teeth as we canoe back up against the current.

People always held the rope in their mouth just in case the seal would somehow come alive and try to swim away. We could easily drop the rope from our mouth, releasing the seal that would otherwise be tied to the canoe and possibly tip it.

Then comes the part where we paddle against the current, dragging the seal in the water. The seal does create drag as we pull it against the current. It takes us three times as long to go against the current to get back to shore.

Our arms are usually tired by the time we get back to shore. The seals never sink this time of the year because they are so fat. It is a good change in the food we eat.

Harley Sundown lives in Scammon Bay.