Tradition... mamaqtuq?
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own the hill at Hugh’s Point, where the Ipanas have their camp. Sandra Ipana explains how important whaling is to her. “If this wasn’t here you might as well cut my right arm off, this is my livelihood.” Sandra spent summers at East Whitefish Station with her mother-in-law Rebecca Chicksi before coming to Kendall Island to help her auntie and uncle “who were getting on in age” over twenty years ago. “When she passed away it was too lonely for me, so I moved here to Hugh’s Point on Baby Island,” she said. “She was so happy to have me work with her so from there we built the framed tent. We’ve been here ever since then. Coming here and harvesting one whale yearly is good enough for my family and my grandchildren,” she says. Sandra takes pride in being able to provide her grandkids with fresh country food at her camp. Coney, jackfish, whitefish and herring are caught, and made into dry fish.
We always bring one pail with us to camp because sometimes the weather is so bad we don’t get a whale right away. So I brought out my one little three gallon. Cleaning out my freezer getting it ready, I saw... what’s this? I found another pail of maktak. I felt so bad for telling people I can’t give you any maktak so I personally distributed it in four smaller ice cream buckets and apologized, I felt bad for ‘lying’ to them!” She laughs. This year Sandra took on a contract to help IRC to fill its freezers with maktak in addition to hunting for her family. IRC serves the delicacy at events. Fuel costs and modern jobs means not everybody is able to go out to whale camps and get their own whale. They are especially happy to have a taste of this traditional food. Sandra sometimes donates maktak. “This year I’m going to put my whale flippers in Nellie’s freezer to enjoy during the jamboree feast, we haven’t had that in a while, it will be something different.”
Sandra showing her grandchildren the maktak resting in pails after being cut up – the maktak is left to develop flavour over a few days.
“Of course I cut up all the maktak for them. They eat the dry fish right away and mipku. With the maktak they tried to use a fork and I said ‘naagga’ (laughs) eat it with your hands,” she says. “One of the girls said ‘Eww maktak’ and I said ‘Don’t say that, that’s part of us. When you say eww your saying eww to yourself because we’re Inuvialuk, and that’s part of who were are...” she said. “This year I was a little bit stingy because I thought I had only a little maktak left.
A bird’s eye view of Hugh’s Point from the hill above.
Sandra Ipana wipes her hands after checking on the oily maktak being processed at her whaling camp at Hugh’s Point, Baby Island.
