Iqaluit's hunters have a new community freezer

After a couple of decades of work, Iqaluit's hunters and trappers association finally has a new community freezer for storing country food, and now the hunters' group is working with the city to figure out where it can be stored.

The Amarok Hunter and Trappers Association's new $100,000 freezer is intended to be up and running by next summer.

"The community has been asking for a freezer for 20, 25 years," said Ben Kovic, one of the association's directors.

The holdup was due to a lack of money; the hunters' association didn't have the cash.

"The government didn't have the money either to give to a community freezer because they had 25 other communities that needed freezers," Kovic said.

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On Tuesday, the hunters and trappers group went before city council to get help in finding a place to store the freezer. The hope is to move the freezer to the beach on city land. Councillors spoke largely in favour of the freezer and sent the group's proposal to its planning and development committee.

The freezer will be made available to hunters who wish to store their catch, free of charge. It's big enough to accommodate "10 caribou, or a bunch of walrus meat," Kovic said.

There's plans to put together a set of guidelines and policies on how the freezer will be used in the new yearand how it will be funded. According to Kovic, it's going to take another $100,000 to operate the freezer.

"Who's going to look after it? Where's the money going to coming from?" are some of the questions that still need to be answered, Kovic said.