AS SOON as Kak’s eyes were strong enough to stand sunlight he joined his father and the other men in the great spring seal hunt. This is the time of year when the Eskimos store seal oil for their next winter’s supply, and killing sufficient animals to fill the bags with oil means keeping at the hunting early and late. Taptuna was a provident man; that is while the sun shone hotly on his bare head, making the sweat run down his neck, he could still remember how winter felt; how dark it was for hunting then, and how cold, and that the season would surely come again. He and Guninana both felt happier about going south for the summer when they knew that several full bags of oil were awaiting their return. Which is much the same as our liking to have next winter’s coal put into the cellar in April.
An oil bag is made by skinning a seal through the mouth, commencing at the lips and turning the skin backward over the head and neck and body as one might turn a sock inside out. By leaving the flippers on unskinned, openings are avoided, and the “poke” is tied at the mouth. When they had made and filled enough bags Taptuna began to pack up. This proved a simple business, for there were no trunks to put things in, and awfully few things to put. Their best winter clothing, the heaviest fur blankets, large cooking pots, wooden food platters, lamps, and oil containers they could spare during the summer; but he was too canny to leave anything behind on that exposed coast where bears prowl continually, when it was possible to take the load with them and cache it among the small islands of Coronation Gulf, which is one of the safest places in the whole Arctic. Polar bears come into the gulf so seldom that many middle-aged people who have spent their lives there have never even seen one.
The first stage of their journey promised anxious moments, for it lay over the ice bridging the dangerous waters of Dolphin and Union Straits. Through this twenty-mile channel, dividing Victoria Island from the mainland, the current runs like a mill race. You doubtless know that running water is always the last to freeze and the first to thaw; the ice is never as thick here as in other places; and late in the spring (it was now May) might not be any too strong to bear a loaded sled. Breaking through the ice and taking a cold plunge into the chilly water underneath is far from pleasant, even when the sun remains shining nearly all night to dry by. Such accidents do happen, however, and on the edge of a floe, where there is little danger except from the wetting, may cause a lot of laughter as the unfortunate victim is pulled out. But to go through into the straits was an entirely different affair. That swiftly racing, cruel tide below would carry a man like a chip, and whirl him instantly, with his first cry for help on his lips, to the black doom of the airless ocean under the ice.
Taptuna decided to travel by night for two reasons: not only would the ice be better, but he was using his damaged sleigh with the musk-ox runner, and had to be very careful that the sun’s rays did not beat on it and thaw out the hide. Every morning when they stopped to camp and sleep, it was his custom to bank snow around the frozen skin plank, so that the summer warmth could not penetrate. He also laid skins on top of the sleigh, making for it a sort of tent; and after sunrise he hung these skins over the edge of the sunny side so that his faked runner slid along in cool shade.
The first stop was to be at Lambert’s Island in the middle of the straits, which is a good camping place because of the driftwood there. Rather than strike out over the ice at once the chief guide led his party in a gentle diagonal from the coast. He walked ahead testing their way every now and then with his pick. Sea ice is not like the fresh-water ice we skate on; instead of being brittle it is elastic, and gives the traveler warning when not strong enough to hold him by bending as he walks over it. Guninana and Noashak came second, while Kak drove the dogs; and Okak, very much scared by the whole adventure, ambled along behind in what he considered the safest place; reasoning that if the load went over the ice would surely be strong enough to bear him. He had not the courage to try imagining what would happen if the load broke through.
Taptuna smiled at this anxiety. He had thought out a scheme for their guidance and was quite sure it would work. At this time of year the caribou migrate in bands from the mainland northward. One day, when he was after seals, he had watched several of these picking their way across the straits. They approached slowly in a very zigzag course, but all got over without any accident so far as he could see. The Eskimo said to himself: “Where they go we can go.” And now he led his family east till they came to the fresh tracks of a good-sized band; by following these to the island, and next evening picking up another track to guide them to the mainland, they were able to cross without any trouble at all.
They camped again, and next afternoon, under a cloudy sky, made good way past Cape Krusenstern. Taptuna welcomed the clouds; they saved him from protecting his sled runner and afforded greater freedom in the hours of travel. By morning the party had reached their little island, made their cache, and were all ready for a good, long sleep.
Everybody rolled out to dinner in wonderful spirits. With their load lightened by half, traveling turned into a lark. A few hours over this solid, smooth bay ice would bring them to Rae River—a pleasant prospect. Guninana smiled, thinking how easy it would be there to go out and get a nice breakfast of fish, and maybe a dinner of fish, and after that a supper of fish in the Eskimo fashion; for these northern folk generally live on one thing at a time, and that the game most readily caught where they may happen to be. Taptuna relaxed, threw his sense of responsibility to the winds and played tag with his children; and Okak came back from a state of blanched fear to his natural color.
Owing to these high jinks they were tired before starting, and it proved to be quite a few miles to Rae River, for their island lay at the outer edge of the group. On they toiled through the gathering gloom, growing more and more weary. Noashak had long ago demanded a ride and was sprawled out over the load, fast asleep. Even her mother felt done.
“We must be nearly there,” she sighed.
“I can see the river now, beyond the rocks yonder,” Okak answered.
“No rocks here!” grunted Taptuna.
“Then what are those shadowy things?”
Okak pointed, but the chief guide was too fed up with his friend’s fancies to bother about them.
“You are always frightening yourself with shadowy things,” Guninana said. “Probably that river you see is a streak in the sky.”
They walked on in silence after that till Kak suddenly stopped.
“I see rocks,” he cried. “One—two—three.... Wolves and foxes! They’re not rocks, they’re tents!”
This was a most exciting discovery. No one had expected to find a village at the river’s mouth, but they welcomed it with joy. People camped here must be friendly, acquaintances by reputation anyhow. News travels slowly in the north, but very surely. Everybody hears everything sooner or later. Their jaded spirits soared in happy anticipation as they hurried on.
Dead silence greeted the party; not a sound nor a motion came from those tents. Evidently the inhabitants had all gone to bed early on account of the darkness. In this part of the country this time of year it is broad daylight always during fair weather, and a cloudy evening offers an excellent chance to catch up on one’s lost sleep. The only signs of life about the village were the dogs. Some lay curled on the ground following their masters’ example, and others prowled to and fro. Eskimo dogs are the worst watch dogs in the world: no good at all on the job. They never bark and they are generally chummy with travelers. These dogs proved no exception to the rule. As soon as they smelled the strangers they came out wagging their tails and making all sorts of friendly advances; not giving so much as one little “wow” of warning. If Taptuna and Okak had wanted to they could have crept into the tents and killed everybody.
Being awake and up and dressed the newcomers had decidedly the advantage in position; and yet Okak was so crazy-frightened at the thought of bad Eskimos, he trembled like an aspen and nagged to “Come away.” Taptuna, laughing, strode on.
“Visitors are here!” he called. “Visitors are here!”
Still the people slept.
Kak was already unharnessing. Being so tired he wanted to get ahead with the work and reckoned on tired dogs behaving themselves. But they were hungry dogs, too. Freed from his leash Sapsuk threw up his nose and sniffed once. A strong smell of fresh fish, which he loved, perfumed the air. He sniffed again and dashed up-wind toward the source. Because he was going lickity-split up the wind, through twilight, and paying very little heed to where he went, he landed squarely on one of the sleeping village dogs before the stranger got a whiff of him. It is hard to say which of the two was the more surprised. However, there is no question which was the angrier. The under cur gave a growl like a wolf, swung his long jaw around and bit Sapsuk’s heel.
Kak’s favorite was no pup to stand liberties. He let a squeal out of him rousing all inhabitants, canine and human, and closed on his enemy.
Dogs leaped from their dreams. Dogs whirled in on every side. They barked now and bit, too. They rushed at each other and snarled and snapped and pawed and nipped. Every dog is always spoiling for a fight. They never waited to ask what it was about, but fell on the nearest animal tooth and claw; while Sapsuk and the stranger in the middle of the mix-up fought like demons. There was yapping and yowling and growling enough for a menagerie gone mad.
In about two seconds all the men came tumbling out half-dressed to see what the row meant. The children followed naked. They don’t have pajamas to sleep in, only fur blankets, and they just jumped up and ran as they were, calling:
“What’s the matter?”
“Who is it?”
“What’s struck ’em?”
The more Puckish urged on the fight with: “Go it, Scruffy!” “Lick into him, Taliak!” and cheers for their own side.
You would have whistled your dog off, but Eskimos cannot whistle. It is an unknown art up north; so the men threw themselves into the mêlée and began hauling the beasts apart by main force. Never before was such a tumult! Kak and Taptuna ran for Sapsuk, calling: “We’re friends! We have no knives!” All the people talked at once and cried aloud while the dogs snarled and snapped. The women yelled to the children: “Come out of it! Come here!” trying to drag them from under their fathers’ feet, till the children cried also; and Pikalu, still harnessed and held by Guninana, split her ears with barking.
It was a very unfortunate introduction, and all Kak’s fault.
When they got the fight stopped and the infuriated animals tied up the people had time to worry about themselves. The village was quite as much frightened at these strangers dashing out of the twilight this way as Okak was of the village. However, as soon as Taptuna found a minute’s peace to announce himself they knew who he was and welcomed the whole party.
With everybody so excited there seemed no use trying to sleep; so the visitors were escorted each to a different tent, and sat up the rest of the night telling adventures and swapping yarns. Going to bed at dawn was the same to them as sleeping in the night, for they had no offices, or schools, or shops opening at any hour; there is no setting clocks back, and no daylight-saving to make people get up early—the sun attends to that himself in the Arctic summer. Sometimes, however, he slacks on the job. Next morning he stayed behind the clouds, and it must have been late afternoon when Kak struggled out to take a look over their new world.
Nobody was about. The village lay sleeping it off. Kak thought: “Now’s the time to spear a few fish.”
This open river offered so much better chance of getting them than through the ice, work became sport. He waded in his waterproof boots, dry and warm. Although it was spring, and hot while the sun shone, and the river rushing to the gulf had swept the ice away from the shore at its mouth, the stream still felt icy cold. Snow lay on the ground, a few flakes sifted down out of the gray clouds, and the straits, as we know, were frozen over.
While Kak waded around with the water burbling above his ankles or up to his knees, intent on his task and enjoying fair success, somebody called out:
“Say! That’s no way to catch fish!”
Now Kak considered himself a pretty good fish spearer. Out of one corner of his eye he had glimpsed this meddling stranger approaching and the last jab or two had been made with a fine flourish in a desire to show off. So the look he shot answering the taunt was far from friendly.
The boy on the river bank only laughed. He was enormously fat, a rare sight among Eskimos, and Kak was so amused, once he got a straight look at him, he forgot to be annoyed. Besides, the boy, instead of sending black glances in return, kept on smiling. It is extremely difficult to remain angry with people who smile. Remember this and try it sometimes. In a minute Kak was smiling also, but when the boy called, “I can show you a trick worth two of that!” it made him feel sore again, as if his personal skill were being challenged. He jabbed viciously and pulled out a big fish, just to establish his self-respect, and tossing it on to the bank asked:
“How’s that?”
“Bully! But why ever don’t you set nets?”
Copper Eskimos never use fish nets; Kak had never seen one. In fact he scarcely understood what the stranger meant, and to cover his ignorance he pretended not to hear. The fat boy raised his voice:
“Say, why don’t you set nets? This looks too much like work for me! You’ll be all day getting your breakfast. Come along down to the beach and I’ll catch you some fish.”
It sounded horribly boastful and patronizing, but the words stirred Kak’s curiosity more than his pride; so caching his fish under a couple of stones, he shouldered his spear and followed the stranger.
HE COULD BARELY SQUEEZE INTO HIS FATHER’S BOAT.
Kommana, for that was the boy’s name, picked up a kayak from the shore and turning it over his shoulder, as you would carry a canoe, brought it to the water. Then he proceeded to get into it. The kayak is a long, narrow boat completely decked with skin except for a round hole at the middle large enough for the owner to sit in. This boy was so bulging fat he could barely squeeze into his father’s boat, and he looked so funny doing it, and made such silly faces at himself, Kak laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. He was secretly rather impressed by Kommana, who was some years older than himself, and thought he had never met anybody so independent. With everything shipshape the fat boy pushed off and paddled to where a row of wooden floats strung themselves across the river’s mouth. Here he stopped, pulled up a few feet of fish net and commenced to empty it. The numbers and size of the fish that came tumbling out made Kak open his eyes.
Kommana let them all flop back into the water as if they were of no value, and finally, when he had tired showing off, he grabbed a few, strung them on a line, swung this over the side of his boat, and paddled to shore.
Kak ran to meet him crying: “Go on, go on! Why don’t you take them all?”
His new friend only grinned. “Not on your life! I don’t work unless I have to; I was just fooling to show you. Presently they will drag the nets to shore and get the lot. Want these?” He held the catch out to Kak, and while the other’s eyes were gloating over it, yawned and stretched. “Guess I’ll go in and have a little more sleep. The village will be waking up soon, and they’re so beastly active. So long! See you again sometime.”
Dismissed in this cool manner Kak went bounding back to his own camp.
“Look! Look!” he cried, as he threw his mess of fish on the floor. “I’ve seen the most marvelous thing!” And he began to tell in excited gasps about the nets. “All these the boy took by merely putting his hand into the water. We must have a net! We must buy a net right away.”
Taptuna shook his head, and Guninana laughed.
“I guess the old way will do us, son,” she said. “The way your fathers did is a good enough way, don’t you think? And you such a wonder at it, too!”
But Kak was not to be silenced with compliments. “This is so quick,” he insisted. “The fish swim into it while you sleep, and in the morning you get them. It is no trouble at all.”
“There’s plenty of work about setting a fish net,” his father objected.
And Okak added: “Where there are several sharing together, look out for quarrels.”
But Kak would not be satisfied till Taptuna promised to go after breakfast and watch the village clearing the nets. It really was watching the village, for the whole place, all the men and nearly all the women, turned out together. Their day’s job consisted in dragging the nets and emptying them. Some worked in groups and some in families, while hundreds of fish were piled and scattered on the beach, coldly reflecting the wan sunlight struggling through a thick white fog. Taptuna saw it all and was certainly impressed. But seeing and doing are entirely different things with an Eskimo. They are what we call a conservative people; that is, they stick to their old habits. They are terribly conservative; Kak’s father was terribly conservative here.
“This is an easy way,” he said, “but it looks to me common and stupid. There is no skill about it. We cannot store fish on our travels; and we will be able to provide with our spears all we need to eat.”
Kak felt bitterly disappointed. He had hoped his father would trade for a fish net and allow him to use it at Dease River. There was a sneaking desire in his heart to show off before the Kabluna. However, at that moment Kommana passed with a couple of dogs hitched to a sled and turned his mind into other channels.
“There’s my friend, dad.”
Taptuna laughed. The ungainly figure waddling about in a ragged suit of old skin clothes made him think of a mangy young musk-ox more than anything else. “That fellow, eh? Well, he looks as if he ought to catch his food by the pailful.”
Kak doubled up with mirth. “Where are you off to?” he shouted between gurgles.
“Wood,” the animated mountain answered gloomily.
“I’ll go along and help if we can have part of the load.”
“Suits me. Follow on.”
Kommana accepted this offer gladly, counting on Kak to fag while he managed the dogs. Besides he loved company. It was rough going and hard pulling at first; but when they got away from the river mouth they turned on to the flat ice and ran about a mile; then they turned in again to the beach.
“All the best wood has been picked up nearer the river, and it is such a beastly nuisance coming so far for it,” the fat boy explained as he sat down on the sleigh to rest.
“What do you want to rest for?” Kak demanded. “You’ve only just got out of bed! Why, we haven’t started yet!”
“Oh, well, I’m tired. I’m always pretty tired.”
The stranger drew a bit of frozen fish out of his coat and began to nibble. “Want some?” he asked; but Kak declined. He had come to gather wood. Gathering wood amused him; it was not a job he had to do at home.
“I’ll gather and you load,” he called. And soon a grand pile was flung up beside the sled.
The fat boy sat nibbling fish and giving orders: “There’s a fine log yonder ... hoist it with a lever.... Yo-ho—she’s off!... See that swell slab by the ice hummock.... No, don’t bring those dinky pieces, they’re such a bother to load and unload, and you know I’m particular about not doing any more light work than I have to.”
Kak might have resented this sort of thing only the other boy laughed and winked and made fun the whole time, and kept him laughing as well as working.
“Come and help me rest,” he suggested after a while. “You will be getting overheated, kid.”
That was true, and it is a bad thing to get overheated, so Kak sat down.
“Beastly time of year!” Kommana grumbled. “Tell me what it’s like up north in your island! Does it keep cool at all seasons?”
“No—it’s hot in summer.”
“Oh, gee! I do hate summer!” the fat boy groaned. “You’ll have a rotten time going south. Nothing but flies, flies, flies, and your clothes sticking to your body with heat as you get farther inland; and food scarce on the prairies. Say, I wouldn’t walk across there, not if my life depended on it!”
“I shan’t mind,” Kak replied stoutly. “Omialik is to be at Dismal Ford.”
That made Kommana jump. He shot a keen glance at his companion, asking: “Who?”
“One of my friends—he’s a Kabluna.”
Kak sounded so magnificent the other lad was suddenly faced with a dilemma; whether to let his new friend score over him and brag, or confess his own duplicity. As he had already reaped the pleasure of the morning’s display he decided it would be most fun to prick Kak’s lofty attitude, so he cried:
“Hoh! The explorer—he’s been here! That’s where we got the fish nets. I knew no more about fishing with nets a few days ago than you did last night. He taught me how to make ’em, too.”
Kak felt considerably dashed, but tried to recover his form by telling how he intended to go to Herschel Island and learn to shoot.
“It’s too far for me,” sighed Fatty. “Too much effort. The rest of the village does all my hunting and keeps me in meat because of the bowls and pails and plates I can chop from this very driftwood.”
“Oh, can you!” said the younger boy, getting a new line on his companion and more impressed than ever.
“Yes, I can make the chips fly—but I won’t ever be anything of a traveler myself. Still, I like to hear you talk. Tell me about that ugrug you killed.”
This request tickled Kak’s vanity and made his heart skip a beat. He was going to tell about it anyway, but being asked so unexpectedly gave him a thrill.
“How did you know?” he managed to stammer.
“Okak was at our house last night—he thinks you’re some pup! Say, would you believe it! I got out of my bed early to go and see this famous ugrug killer, and I—ha-ha!—I—ha-ha!—I found him spearing little fishes!”
Kommana thought this a tremendous joke and went off into peals of laughter, holding his shaking sides. But Kak was hardly so pleased. To change the subject he dashed right into the ugrug story and told it as fast as he could; and after that he told about his house-building, and then about the white bear. By the time all his stories were done it was growing dark and Kommana said they had better leave the load. But Kak would not hear of that, so he pitched in and piled, while the fat fellow stood around and told him how, moving a stick now and again, and patting the dogs. Finally when the load was up and they were ready to start for home Kak had done all the work and all the entertaining, and Kommana had only sharpened his wits and enjoyed life. On their way back, however, he made Kak an offer.
“If you’ll bring me a cracker-jack piece of spruce,” he said, “a real good, wide slab to make a snow shovel, I’ll get my dad to give you one of the pups out of our last litter.”
Kak’s eyes sparkled. “Honor bright?”
“Honor bright. They’re fine pups, too; but I’ve been looking for a piece broad enough to make a shovel for three years.”
“You’ve as good as got it in your hand,” the Copper Eskimo replied. “I’ve been wanting a dog of my own for ever so long!”