Above: The Inuksuk II preparing for launch
It’s ironic that the largest fishing vessel in Canada is owned by one of the least-known fish companies in the country.
The new Inuksuk II is in the water, but still at the construction shipyard in Turkey getting final interior jobs done and installation of deck gear before delivery this fall to Baffin Fisheries.
Incorporated in 2001, Baffin Fisheries is owned by five Inuit Hunters and Trappers Associations in the Nunavut region. The company’s website states that the company was built “for the benefit of Nunavut.”
Everything about the Inuksuk II is impressive starting with its size and cost. At 80 metres long and 18 metres wide (263ft X 59ft), the vessel cost approximately $72 million. If construction had just started this year, that would be at least $100 million factoring in inflation over the past couple of years.
The Norwegian-designed vessel has a capacity of 1,320 tonnes frozen-at-sea Greenland halibut (turbot) or 930 tonnes of coldwater shrimp.
The current Baffin Fisheries fleet consists of three vessels. The 64-metre Sivulliq and the 60-metre Inuksuk I are factory-freezer trawlers, while the Arluk II, measuring 30 metres, is a fixed-gear vessel. All three will continue working as part of the Baffin fleet until the new Inuksuk II navigates through possible growing pains and proves that she can live up to expectations.
When the company is satisfied with the performance of its new ship, it is expected the Inuksuk I, built in 1987, will probably be retired or sold.
Expectations for the new ship are high and seem valid. While it is longer and wider than the two current factory freezers in the fleet, the Inuksuk II has a carrying capacity of more than the other two factory ships combined. It’s like adding two more ships with the capacity of the Sivulliq.
When you consider accommodations for as many as 36 crewmembers and a much larger processing factory, the Inuksuk II promises to be a major advancement. But then, fishing in the far north is far from easy.
Turbot quotas are caught in areas 0A and 0B east of Baffin Island from the middle of May to the middle of November, while shrimp is caught in the northern regions of Ungava Bay and Davis Strait in November and December. Harvesters fish in the southern areas from January to May. People are often surprised to learn that fishing shrimp and turbot that far north goes on year-round, often in heavy ice conditions. If ice conditions become severe in winter, they will arrange refit and maintenance work to keep the workflow moving forward.
There are no ports in those northern areas that can accommodate vessels the size of the Baffin Fisheries fleet. That means their vessels must travel hundreds of nautical miles to ports in Newfoundland, mainly Bay Roberts, to offload their catch and replenish supplies of food and other essentials.
In some cases, the fleet lands in Nuuk, Greenland, especially in summer months. Nuuk is less than half the distance of Bay Roberts which saves time and money. The long distances also mean their crew rotation patterns are longer periods than in most industries. Captains and crew spend two trips at a time which is about two months on the vessels and two months off. Rotation for crews on the new vessel will likely be even longer because the increased carrying capacity will take longer to fill and fewer trips to Bay Roberts mean significant savings.
Shane Noonan is one of the two captains on the Sivulliq. Captain Noonan makes no attempt to hide his excitement about soon becoming one of the two masters on the Inuksuk II.
“It’s really exciting,” he says, adding that he would be travelling to Turkey in late April and was anxious to get his first look at the new trawler. Noonan went to the Hungarian shipyard to work with the builders for eight or ten days to help finalize decisions on locating various pieces of on-deck and wheelhouse equipment and other similar considerations.
Captain Noonan invited yours truly onboard the Sivulliq on April 23 when they were in port at Bay Roberts. My first impression was that the 210-ft Sivulliq is a very large fishing vessel.
After getting a quick tour of the ship, I wondered why the company needed an even larger one. While chatting with Captain Noonan, I soon realized that fishing in the far north in ice infested waters more than 2,000 kilometres (1,100–1,200 nautical miles) from Bay Roberts is very different than fishing in ice-free nearby waters to the south.
Vessels fishing up north must be ice strengthened and large. They also must have top-notch technology because modern equipment means greater efficiency. With the fishing grounds and their main port of call about the same distance apart as St. John’s to Ireland, Baffin Fisheries needs all the efficiency they can get to operate in competitive international shrimp and turbot markets.
The Inuksuk II will offer an improved social environment for crewmembers when they have a few hours off and during their long steam times to and from port. Among other amenities, the new vessel will have a gymnasium and even a movie theatre for their relaxation.
It won’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows Shane Noonan that he’d be in command of such a large fishing vessel while still in his thirties. At just 38, he’s well qualified.
Shane fished with his dad, Captain Edwin Noonan from Bay de Verde, from the time he was just a boy. Edwin Noonan was one of the most prominent fishing captains on Newfoundland’s east coast and under his leadership, young Shane was getting the ultimate hands-on experience that can’t be taught in a classroom.
Meanwhile, the younger Captain Noonan did spend a lot of time in a classroom though. He holds a First-Class Fishing Master certification, plus an Advanced Polar certificate for ice navigation.
Captain Shane has first-hand experience in what to do when things go wrong. In May 2005, he was engineer with his dad on the MacKenzie’s Dream, a large 65-ft multi-species vessel that caught fire while fishing offshore. Shane’s dad and mom along with his sister and brother, a cousin and a friend were also onboard. They abandoned ship in the nick of time but during the chaos, his mom fell and wound up in the water as she tried to get into a life raft.
The family says that had it not been for Shane’s quick thinking and bravery in rescuing his mother from the ocean and his actions to get everyone into life rafts quickly, it could have been a tragedy that might have taken all seven.
Shane first started working with Baffin Fisheries in 2007. He moved quicky from working on deck to the position of second mate. In 2017, he was made captain on the Inuksuk I and shortly afterwards he was appointed master of the Sivulliq, the largest vessel in the fleet to date.
Most of Baffin Fisheries crewmembers are from Newfoundland and Labrador while some of the others are Inuit from Nunavut. The company is encouraging more Inuit to take an interest in working on their trawlers and offer training programs as needed because living on a factory freezer trawler for lengthy periods has never been part of the traditional Nunavut Inuit lifestyle.
Captain Noonan says more Inuit are becoming involved each year. As the company strives to make their business more and more beneficial to the people of Nunavut, perhaps more Inuit will decide to become trawlermen soon.
