Winter Fishing In The Arctic

Every year about this time the people of the Arctic become restless because of the long dark winter. As the first rays of sunlight brighten the southern skyline the thoughts of fresh fish becomes an obsession. The winter stockpiles of frozen fish become depleted and even the remaining frozen fish are not too tasty as they have freezer burn from being stored underground in the perma frost. Inuit store fresh frozen fish by layering them in ice by dipping the fish a number of times until a thin layer of ice protects them from the air. In this way the fish are edible but after a few months they become a shadow of themselves when they are fresh caught.

Fishing in the winter months takes skill and hard work. The ice on the lakes become frozen to a depth of over nine feet.With the poor tools of days gone by it would take a day to dig a hole in the ice. Today with power augers it takes minutes. The Inuit were clever in finding pressure ridges which could be exploited by widening the crack in the ice field. On the ocean this was never a problem as the ocean shifted on a regular basis and produced pressure ridges many feet high and leads or cracks, many of which were several feet wide and miles long. These are very dangerous and many lives are lost by people falling in these leads. Children are warned about this danger but with snow machines travelling at high speeds they are often undetected.

My favourite fishing in the winter was finding an open lead and jigging for Northern Black Cod. These fish were very plentiful but the Inuit were hesitant about eating them. They preferred to fish for Arctic Char in the fresh water lakes by jigging or spearing them. They used a small lure made of ivory or caribou bone on a string and would move it up and down to attract the char. When a char came close they would spear it with a special fish spear.

There was nothing as enjoyable as eating a fresh caught fish in the winter even though the work was cold and hard. There are stories of Inuit sitting by a fishing hole for days to catch a fish when times were bad. Starvation was always present in the minds of the Inuit at the end of winter and before the spring breakup. This was the season before the caribou came and the waters were still frozen so food was scarce. Even as late as the 1950"s Inuit families starved in some places in the Arctic where they lived outside the support of civilization. This does not occur today as all Inuit live in Hamlets with services and safety nets.

While I lived in the Arctic I could have survived on fresh fish because fishing was my pastime and  I loved Black Arctic Cod.