The Seal Woman

Once, in a very harsh place, a hunter was out in his kayak. It was past dark and he had not found anything. He came upon the great spotted rock in the sea, and in the half-light the rock appeared to be full of gracious movement. As he drew closer, he saw a group of stunningly beautiful women, and in his loneliness he felt pangs of love and longing. He saw a sealskin on the edge of the rock and stole it. As the women donned their skins and swam back into their watery home, one of them realised she was without her skin...

The man called out to her "Be my wife, I am lonely" but she said, "I can't, I am of the Temeqvanek, I live beneath." But he said to her: "Be my wife, and in seven summers I'll give you back your skin, and you can do as you wish." Reluctantly, the seal woman agreed.

They had a much loved child, Ooruk, whom she taught all the stories about the creatures of the sea that she knew. But after a time her flesh started to dry out, she turned pale and her sight began to darken. The day came when she asked for her skin back.

"No," said the husband- did she want to leave the family motherless and wifeless?

In the night Ooruk heard a giant seal calling in the wind, and he followed the call to the water. In the rocks he found a sealskin and, on smelling it, realised it was his mother's. Taking it to her, she was delighted, and took him with her under the water where she introduced the boy to the great seal and all the others.

She regained her colour and her health, because she had returned home... She became known as the seal no one could kill, Tanquigcaq, holy one. After a while she had returned the child to land, but when he grew up he was often seen communing with a particular seal near the water.