Eviskar Island

by Warren Dalzell

  VI.

  The Stjerne anchored a hundred yards off the Eviskar coast. The Holloways, the four students and Johan Sørensen stood packed and ready while sailors readied the two rigid-hulled inflatable boats, RHIBs, that would transport them to shore. Tough and maneuverable even in the heaviest of seas, the twenty-three-foot-long craft had strong, solid hulls and sported inflatable tubes that surrounded the gunwales for added buoyancy and stability. Most modern navies employed some version of this design as tenders for their warships.

  Strong hands reached up to guide them into the RHIB after each traveler had negotiated the short metal loading ladder that had been placed against the Stjerne’s hull. The command to cast off came as soon as Morgan, the last passenger to board, had taken his seat.

  Marcie thought for sure they would crash as the boat skimmed the water and rapidly approached shore. At the last instant, the pilot reversed the engine and the stout hull slid smoothly up onto the gravel beach using the craft’s residual momentum. No sooner had the Eviskar group exited the boat, the two sailors who’d accompanied them jumped out and gave a hearty yell as they pushed the craft back into the surf and began their return trip.

  They had arrived. The four students stood where they’d landed and surveyed the place they’d gone through so much trouble to get to. It wasn’t exactly an idyllic tropical getaway replete with palm trees, hibiscus flowers and pretty girls in grass skirts. It was rugged and desolate, but it was impressive nonetheless, exuding the majestic charm of a pristine locale essentially uninfluenced by mankind. They now realized how important this settlement was to historians. How anyone could have made such a long voyage in small open boats now became a topic of wonder. Much of what Morgan had been telling them was beginning to sink in.

  The beach itself was open and broad and consisted of basalt gravel and sand, weathered by thousands, if not millions, of years of wave action. A few dozen yards from where they landed, three large rubber craft, zodiacs, rested on the gravel above the high tide mark. Farther inland, the terrain rose gradually and plateaued at a height of about eighty feet above sea level. It was there that numerous structures could be seen. Several large canvas tents each at least twenty to thirty feet long and of similar width, had been set up uphill from the zodiacs. Farther down the beach, to the south, they could make out crumbling stone walls surrounded by ropes, flagging and yellow tape—the remnants of the Old Norse settlement. That was where they would be spending most of their working hours.

  Two people were making their way over from the work site. Clad in mud-caked work boots, coveralls and wide-brimmed hats they waved and shouted greetings as they got close. “Welcome, welcome back,” the man in front said. He shook hands with Morgan and Johan and then gave Debbie a hearty hug. “It is so good to see you. How was your trip?” The words came out in heavily accented English. He removed his hat to wipe his brow. With his head uncovered he lost a good six inches to his apparent height and revealed a shock of fine black hair, flecked with grey, atop a round face. Stocky and fit, his weathered appearance gave the impression he’d be just as comfortable mushing a sled in a minus-forty degree blizzard as he was working at an archeological dig.

  “We had…uh…a very eventful trip,” Sørensen replied. “Ittuk, I have the distinct honor of introducing you to these fine young students who will be joining us for the summer.” He beamed with pride, as though speaking about his own children. “During our voyage on the Stjerne, I have gotten to know each of them, and I expect they will be of enormous help on this project.”

  “That is wonderful. It is always good to have youth and enthusiasm around. It will help to keep us old people on our toes.”

  Sørensen addressed the students, “This, my friends, is Professor Ittuk Inunnguaq of the University of Greenland. He is the one who discovered this remarkable site and he is our much appreciated expedition leader.”

  “As usual, Johan, you are too kind. I must say that local Inuit people, seal hunters, have known of these ruins for many years. They simply decided to honor us with that knowledge. We should give credit where it is due.” He turned to his companion and said something in a foreign tongue. Reverting back to his halting English he then turned to Debbie. “Dr. and Mrs. Holloway, if you would be kind enough to introduce our young employees to their rustic accommodations, the rest of us will retrieve the supplies.”

  Professor Inunnguaq’s colleague, also a man of Greenlandic heritage, had gone to get one of the zodiacs. He was now bringing it around to where a pile of crates and boxes sat on the sand—additional supplies offloaded by the sailors of the Stjerne. The ever inquisitive Spencer asked, “What’s all that stuff?”

  “Mainly food and fuel,” said Sørensen. “In particular, you will be glad that we have a good supply of kerosene for the heaters in our tents. Even in June the nighttime temperature here sometimes falls below freezing. We would burn wood, but there is none that grows this far north. That is another reason why it is so unusual to find evidence of such an old settlement at this latitude. A major goal of our research is to determine why people traveled all the way up here. It was for seasonal use, of that we are reasonably certain, but it still doesn’t answer the question: why?”

  * * *

  The women’s bunkhouse was one of the three large tents they’d seen from the beach. Adjacent to that was the men’s dormitory, and the third one in line was the kitchen. A fourth tent, located closer to the actual dig site and out of view of the beach, was a combination supply room and infirmary.

  “Wow, this is what I call camping in style.” Marcie was impressed with the living arrangements. She pushed her rucksack under the cot to which she’d been assigned and then lay down to test its effectiveness as a bed. “Just awesome,” she added, jumping back to her feet.

  Jocelyn was horrified. “This is it?”

  “What did you expect?” Debbie replied. “The literature we sent with the acceptance letter contained specifics about the accommodations.”

  “It said we’d be in a bunkhouse. This is a tent. And where the heck is the bathroom? How am I supposed to wash and…stuff?” She caught herself, realizing that to mention ‘taking a shower’ might be a tad inflammatory after what had happened on the Stjerne.

  “Actually, Jocelyn, these canvas tents are amazing. It can be windy and minus twenty degrees outside, but with the flaps closed and the kerosene heater going, we’ll stay warm as toast—in shirtsleeves no less. Now, if you’ll follow me outside, I’ll show you our, uh, ‘facilities.’” Debbie smiled at Marcie, “I think you’ll find the way they’ve set up camp is quite clever.”

  The three women exited their living quarters through the back door and hung a left. Located about twenty yards away were two tall canvas enclosures. The flaps were pulled back and even from a distance it was obvious what purpose they served. Inside each was a sturdy frame about three feet high which supported a toilet seat. A small step stool was positioned in front of the frame to accommodate shorter individuals. Underneath each seat was a ten gallon bucket.

  “These are what we call our ‘throne rooms.’” Debbie flashed a sly grin at Jocelyn, “Any questions?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. Which one is the ladies room?”

  “Both actually. They’re unisex—first come, first served.”

  “I don’t see any doors,” the girl continued, “how the heck can anyone be guaranteed any privacy?”

  “It’s obvious; just tie the flaps shut. No one will bother you; we’re all adults here. Oh, before I forget, both of you be sure to check the white board in the kitchen every morning. It lists each day’s work assignments. The first time either of you is assigned to ‘bucket brigade,’ I’ll come with you to show you where to dump these guys. Mikkel Dalgaard, one of the other researchers, is a master gardener. He’s set up a most remarkable compost pit. All of our biodegradable kitchen waste gets tossed into a trash can and it, along with these ‘honey pots,’ gets emptied daily into the pit. It’s absolutely amazing how e
ffective the system is. By next year, the waste we discard this summer will have turned into soil. There won’t be any residual odor; it will have been completely broken down by microbial action, even in this cold environment. All of our combustible waste is disposed of by burning. We use an old oil drum as a burning barrel. I’ll show you that process as well when the time comes.”

  “No way”

  “What’s that?”

  “I said, ‘no way,’” Jocelyn repeated. “Debbie, I didn’t sign up to come half way around the world to empty shit buckets.”

  Debbie was fed up with Jocelyn’s attitude. Working hard to control her anger, she said in a calm voice, “Neither did anyone else, Jocelyn. You’re not being asked to do anything more than the rest of us. We all have to take our turns at the less desirable chores.” Jocelyn started to protest, but Debbie interrupted, “If you have any further complaints, please take them up with Ittuk. He’s the fellow who came to greet us when we landed, and he’s the official leader of this project. I must warn you though, he doesn’t respond favorably to those who don’t pull their weight. In fact,” her tone hardened and she looked Jocelyn squarely in the eye, “I feel obliged to note that he will not be as warm, personable and benevolent as your friend Captain Magnussen. And, Jocelyn—neither Morgan nor I will intervene on your behalf if we feel you are in the wrong.”

  * * *

  Debbie, Jocelyn and Marcie stood at the edge of the pit looking on with interest as Magnus Strøm carefully brushed dirt off of their latest find. Magnus and his wife Liva were veterans of the Eviskar project, both of them providing invaluable expertise with regard to what they were now doing. Last summer the team had unearthed the skeleton of a middle-aged woman. A week ago, while digging in the same area, about twenty yards from the main, stone ‘house,’ they’d found another.

  “I believe you are absolutely correct, Liva. We have the remains here of a young female, of perhaps twenty years old.”

  Magnus and Liva were both physicians by training. He was a retired cardiologist, and she was a pathologist and world-renowned forensic anthropologist. Together they were the team’s undisputed authorities when it came to dealing with any human remains that were found. They were also the project’s medical team, bearing responsibility for all physical ailments or injuries that befell any of the archeological workers.

  “How can you tell all that?” asked Marcie. She was leaning over them, fascinated by the assemblage of bones and nearly completely decomposed clothing that lay before her.

  “The gender is readily apparent,” Liva said. She lowered herself next to the remains and pointed with her pen at the pelvis. “See how wide the pelvis is? How far apart the ilia are? A male pelvis would be much narrower. Also, this person was probably Scandinavian.” She ran her fingers along the backs of the upper front teeth and nodded, as if to confirm her hypothesis. “Yes, definitely European. The arch of the maxilla and the spatulate incisor surfaces strongly suggest these are Norse remains. That is important because indigenous Inuit people also might have settled here at some time.

  “Her age is difficult to determine exactly, but we can come close.” She brushed more dirt from the skull and ran her pen along its divisions. “You can tell the sagittal and coronal sutures are not completely fused. That means we are dealing with someone younger than, say, thirty. In addition, all of the permanent teeth are present except for the third molars, what the English call ‘wisdom teeth.’ Those have not fully erupted.”

  “Wow, so just from the skull and the teeth you can deduce her age?”

  “Those are perhaps the best indicators, yes. There are others, however. Another reliable age marker is the major joints. The end of the femur, right below the knee joint, appears not to have ossified completely. However, I will need an x-ray to confirm this.”

  “That means she was still growing, right?”

  “Why, yes, that is correct.” Liva was impressed. “You seem to know something of human physiology, Marcie.”

  “Not much,” the girl replied modestly.

  “Well, for the benefit of the others, I should probably explain my last observation. You see, an individual’s long bones have cartilage at their ends which grows until he reaches his teens. The cartilage cells adjacent to the bone itself, as opposed to those nearest the joint, gradually convert to bone. As Marcie said, that is how we grow. When our growth rate slows, most of the cartilage will have turned into bone, a process termed ossification, and the cartilaginous zone, called the epiphyseal plate, at the bone’s terminus, becomes very thin. I conclude that when she died, this young woman was not much older than you, Marcie.” Liva looked at Jocelyn. “She was about your age, Jossy.”

  “Look at this, Liva.” Magnus pointed to a spot below the base of the skull. “It is like the other woman.”

  Liva examined the spot and shared a somber, knowing look with her husband. She then said to everyone present: “Last summer we found a neck fracture which we felt might have resulted when the other corpse was buried. This one has the exact same injury. That sort of coincidence seems unlikely.” After a moment’s hesitation, she continued, “There is a good chance that these two women, who endured so much hardship in this remote place, probably did not die of natural causes.”

  * * *

  Debbie and the two female students had been assigned to help exhume the skeletal remains for further study. Jack and Spencer worked some fifty yards to the east, assisting Morgan, Ittuk and several others excavate the area around what appeared to be one of the primary buildings of the ancient village.

  What remained of the walls displayed expert craftsmanship. The blocks of local stone from which they’d been constructed had been dry-fit together so precisely as to leave no gaps for wind and rain to get through. The mere fact that parts of the structure were still standing after a millennium of abuse by Mother Nature, was further testament to the masonry skill of the builders.

  Jack had set up the surveying gear and was turning angles and shooting distances to various points of interest. Most were control points, set to define and outline the research area. Others were locations where artifacts and other objects of interest were unearthed.

  Spencer had made it his job to work with the CAD software Morgan had brought with him. The young technology wizard would download data that Jack acquired and store them in such a way that they could be viewed as a 3-D image from any perspective. He had even included links to .jpg camera images, allowing anyone running the software to visually examine the locale where an artifact lay while simultaneously noting its exact position within the dig site. In the evenings, Spencer would amaze many of the older, less computer savvy, archeologists with the powerful data display tools he and Jack had implemented.

  Debbie left the grave site and sauntered over to where Jack and Spencer were hard at work. She was extremely proud of how her students were performing. It was now three weeks into the summer’s work, and all four, even Jocelyn, had become accepted, even indispensable, members of the crew. But in the last few days she’d noticed subtle changes in their attitudes. It was as if they were on auto-pilot, performing their duties in admirable fashion, but without the same level of enthusiasm they had exhibited earlier. In other words, her students were becoming bored. The work had become slow and monotonous for them—they needed a break. After watching the boys work for a spell, she said, “Guys, it’s almost lunchtime. Let’s meet in the kitchen in about fifteen minutes. I’ve got a proposition for you.”

  It was Ittuk’s turn to make lunch. Instead of the usual fare of tasteless, re-heated canned mush, he’d decided to treat his compatriots to a real Greenlandic meal. Delving into their small freezer, he’d extracted a slab of seal meat which he was now frying alongside potatoes and onions in a large skillet.

  The students sat at one of the tables, waiting patiently for Ittuk to finish and speculating about what Debbie had in the offing. The pungent smells wafting over from the stove piqued Spencer’s curiosity. “What ‘cha cookin’, It
tuk?”

  “It is a special treat for my new American friends—fresh seal meat. I killed it this spring, a female…very tasty.”

  “Smells like fish.”

  “It has the taste of the sea, Spencer, and it is full of nutrients; iron, protein, calcium…you will like it, of that I am certain.”

  Moments later, the students and the rest of the lunch crowd filled their plates, buffet style, and sat back down. While the hungry Scandinavian researchers dove into their food, looks of apprehension passed among the newcomers. Each was waiting for one of the others to take the first bite.

  It was Jack who summoned his courage and gave in. “Here goes,” he said. Cutting off a good-sized piece of seal, he chewed it slowly, savoring both the taste and the attention bestowed upon him by his captive audience.

  “Well?” Jocelyn asked impatiently.

  Jack held up his hand in a gesture for her to wait. When they saw him swallow, all three leaned forward, anticipating a verdict. Jack merely smiled and cut himself another piece. It was obvious he was toying with them. Marcie took the hint and followed Jack’s lead. She took a bite and ate it in silence. Another agonizing minute passed.

  “Aw, you guys,” Spencer admonished. There was nothing to do but to try it himself. Soon, the three of them were eating their meals, waiting for Jocelyn to join in.

  Their wait continued. The young woman from Corpus Christi picked at her vegetables and pushed the slice of seal meat around her plate. She was still gathering her nerve when Ittuk stopped by.

  “It is good, is it not?” he beamed. “In winter, the seals are what keep us alive here in the North. The fat keeps you warm, and,” he added, making a fist, “the meat makes you strong.” The expression on Ittuk’s face was one of hope. Part of his culture was on display, subject to criticism by his new colleagues. Sensing this, Marcie, Jack and Spencer offered enthusiastic replies.