If prices for sealskins stay as high as they have been lately, Pitseolak Alainga may have to buy a bigger dining room table. "If I bring in more seals, I bring in more family," says the hunter from Iqaluit, Nunavut, who's just back from the seal grounds on the edge of Frobisher Bay's floe ice.

"We're doing pretty well right now."

Alainga is one of hundreds of Inuit hunters enjoying booming prices for sealskins on the international market. After years of depressed markets -- and big losses for the Nunavut government's pelt purchase program -- prices at one of Canada's two major fur markets this month set a record.

Prices at the auction in North Bay, Ont., averaged $70 per pelt -- more than double the $30 average of 2002 and a 470 per cent increase over the mid-1990s low of $15. The record price for the very best pelts reached $92.

The 7,500 skins that Nunavut marketed at the auction is a small fraction of Canada's total harvest.

About 12,000 licensed hunters in Newfoundland, Quebec and Prince Edward Island have an annual quota of 350,000 animals. The Newfoundland government estimates the hunt brought $20 million to the province's economy in 2002.

But in a territory desperate to squeeze out every bit of economic activity from whatever resources it has, nowhere is the higher price more welcome than in Nunavut.

"We don't have a lot of other avenues to go and get jobs," said Sakiasie Sowdlooapik of Nunavut's Environment Department.

"If the price is climbing up, the social welfare amounts will be a little bit lower. It is very, very important for every community in Nunavut."

Sealskin sales pumped about $450,000 into communities around Nunavut that have very few other resources.

The boom is driven largely by markets in Europe and Asia. Sleek, silvery, patterned sealskin is appearing on runways in shows from top design houses such as Prada and Dolce and Gabbana.

It's part of a resurgence in all fur prices, said Alan Herscovici of the Canadian Fur Council.

Mink prices alone have increased 50 per cent to $335 million in 2003 from $143 million in 1992.

A big impediment to the seal hunt fell in 1997 when the European Union began to allow some sealskins back in after completely banning their import. The United States still has an import ban.

In Nunavut, where the territorial government buys furs from hunters and then resells them at auction, the high prices will provide money for training and development of the industry.

"If we used this money to educate our younger hunters that want to become full-time, this money would go a long way," Sowdlooapik said.

It's the first time in years the government expects to break even on the program.

For Alainga, $70 pelts mean hunting finally brings in enough money to pay for itself.

"That has really helped some of us seal hunters by bringing in extra gas money and extra bullet money," he said.

Even though he has a full-time job as a heavy equipment operator, Alainga heads out on the land once or twice a week. He estimates he gets about 30 seals a year.

But for him and other Inuit, there's much more to seal-hunting than cash.

The meat is an important part of the Inuit diet and sharing it among family is central to the culture. A freshly killed seal is both a bag of groceries and a link to the past.

"The seal meat is for getting together," Alainga said. "It's a tradition of Inuit and my family, by asking people to come and cut up the seal in the house and get old memories back by talking about the past and how we used to do this.

"All that good stuff brings back memories, every time we bring in a seal."