Narwhal have intrigued monarchs to mere mortals like myself for centuries, ever since that single, giant, ivory pool-cue of a tooth arrived from the New World to be paraded around Europe as proof of the existence of unicorns. They ply the icy waters of Canada’s Arctic, but like all things magical, they are elusive. I have encountered them often—but either frustratingly distant or just metres away, invisible in thick fog, their moist, syncopated gasps surrounding me as if the ocean itself was breathing.

Then one day in Pond Inlet, NU, at the top tip of Baffin Island, 3,000 km (1,864 mi) north of Montréal, QC, the frozen sea ice cracked open as it does in spring. The floe edge to the east and north of town began to seethe with a feeding frenzy of incoming migratory birds and creatures: seals, walrus, whales and polar bears. After a long, dark winter cooped up in town, this predominantly Inuit community of just over 1,300 was hungry for fresh, traditional “country foods”—and the prize catch is narwhal. A single whale promises about 400 kg (882 lbs) of meat and the much-loved delicacy of muktuk—the skin and blubber—plus the added bonus of $10 per inch for the ivory tusks. The hunt was on, and I wanted to go along.

If Sam Omik had a résumé, it would simply state “hunter.” He is one of the few men in Pond Inlet who supports his extended family in the traditional manner by hunting for food and bringing in cash by guiding international hunters. Omik and his brother Matthias were setting off the next day for their cabin eight hours northwest across the sea ice by snowmobile. After overnighting, they would continue north to the floe edge to hunt. If I brought my own food and helped pay for fuel, I could come along.

We took off pulling two komatiq, Inuit sleds that are a centuries-old marvel of Arctic engineering. To carry supplies and passengers, a large box is lashed to the sled. I rode atop the box on a foam mattress that would be my bed, bouncing over vertebrae-jarring ice or, at times, inching through slush or surfing across ponds of turquoise melt water.

We skipped across narrow “leads,” or cracks, of open water. Stopping for a break, Sam Omik fired up the stove while Matthias Omik filled a kettle with snow. When it boiled, he slipped in chunks of frozen Arctic char. Then he served the luscious, orange-fleshed fish steaming hot straight onto the ice with a sprinkling of salt and pepper, eaten with fingers; no cutlery, no dishes. And we were off again.

In the perpetual daylight of June at 72 degrees north, the action never stops. Throughout the “night,” snowmobiles arrived at the Omiks’ camp. Tents were pitched and dogs barked as relatives and friends arrived for the weekend.

In the morning, we set off for the floe edge. En route, Sam Omik shot two snow geese, quickly disrobed and dropped them in pieces—complete with a translucent, ready-to-be-laid egg—into boiling water. Lunch was a leisurely Arctic feast, including frozen sushi sliced off a char, bannock bread and flaky pilot biscuits, Arctic hardtack.

There seemed no hurry to move on. Matthias Omik adjusted the sights of his rifle while his 13-year-old son, Caleb, looked on. Young Elisha tried his luck at taking the snowmobile up a very steep incline. There was no verbal instruction between elders and youth; knowledge was passed on by watching. When, Levi, another teen, took potshots at passing geese, Sam Omik spoke only when the boy did something wrong. “Stop,” he said quietly, “too late now.” There was no tension between adults and teens. Relaxed and peaceful, it felt more like an Arctic picnic than a serious Inuit hunting expedition. I could see why everyone who could escape town spent summers “on the land” in a tented camp. This is how their traditional lives were lived.

An hour later, we stood off the northern tip of Borden Peninsula before a narwhal hunter’s nemesis: a spectacular, but impenetrable, mass of ice chunks and slabs, towering icebergs and bergy bits pushed against the floe edge by an onshore wind. Hmmm… this wasn’t in the plan. Out came the stove to brew Inuit tea, a fistful of bags boiled to the colour of peat, then supersaturated with sugar. An hour of earnest discussion and periods of thoughtful silence passed. The hunters gauged the wind and watched the clouds. “What do you think we should do next?” Sam Omik asked me earnestly. I stared wide-eyed, clueless. They doubled over with laughter.

On this day, the narwhal remained safe from the hunters.

We backtracked to a sheltered beach, the hunters pitching their spacious white canvas tents. The temperature hovered around -10 degrees C (14 degrees F), sunny and warm, by Arctic standards. While we waited out the wind, the camp became a hive of activity with much hammering and sawing, skidoos being tuned up, knives sharpened, komatiq repaired.

Days passed at a leisurely pace as we watched an onshore wind that never let up. Once or twice a day, the Omik brothers draped rifles across their shoulders, fired up the snowmobiles at a moment’s notice and headed across the tundra with a teen on the back seat. They returned hours later to add to a growing pile of caribou, geese and seals that lifted everyone’s spirits.

One afternoon, two skinned caribou heads lashed to the back of a komatiq became the focus of our frequent tea parties around the two-burner Coleman stove that is the Inuit’s mobile fireplace. We all picked with pocketknives at morsels of meat around the skulls. As the only female on the trip (although some Inuit women like to hunt, they generally don’t join hunting expeditions), I had gotten used to hunting-camp humour and could hold my own with the teasing and flirting.

It was our fifth shower-less day on the land, and we were a motley crew. They wore jackets torn and repaired with duct tape. My parka and pants, like theirs, were spattered with caribou blood and smeared with gluey seal fat. It was liberating not to care about how I looked. When Sam suddenly announced we would be heading back to town in the morning, I was stung with disappointment. I would miss the easy conversation and humour, the long comfortable silences and simply joining a group or parting without the platitudes of greetings and farewells as per Inuit custom.

We arrived in Pond Inlet the following evening with seals, caribou and dozens of snow geese strapped to the komatiq. But no narwhal. I knew seeing the whales was a long shot. But if there was one thing I learned from Sam Omik, it’s that you take what the land is ready to give.

www.nunavuttourism.com