by John Wilson
“I’m not so sure.”
“That they’re geeky?”
“No, that they’re scientists. There’s something odd about them.”
“You’re not getting paranoid again, are you?” I ask.
“Not paranoid,” Annabel says. “Naturally suspicious. Terry said they flew from Fort McPherson on last week’s flight.”
“Yeah, there’s probably only a couple of flights a week up here.”
“There are no flights from Fort McPherson to Sachs Harbour at this time of year. Jim, on the plane, said they only stopped at Fort McPherson in May and November.”
“Maybe there’s another airline,” I suggest, “or they flew in on a government plane.”
“Maybe, but they don’t know much about krill either.”
“They only agreed with you that it must take a lot of krill to feed a beluga, and it must.” I’m not defending Rob and Terry. I think they’re strange too. But I’m worried that Annabel’s going to question every single minute of the trip.
“It would take a lot of krill to feed a beluga,” Annabel agrees, “if belugas ate krill. Only whales with filters in their mouths—baleen—eat krill. Belugas are toothed whales. They don’t eat krill.”
“They’re awkward,” I say, “maybe they were nervous. They sure left as quickly as they could.”
“Yeah,” Annabel says, although she doesn’t sound convinced.
Chapter Seven
“Jim wasn’t kidding when he said that his door was always open,” Annabel says. We are on the front porch of the blue house at the end of town. The door is wide open, and the sound of voices comes from inside.
I knock on the doorframe. There’s no response.
“Hello,” Annabel shouts into the house. Two children about five or six years old burst through the doorway on our right. They skid to a halt and stand staring at us. Jim appears behind them. “Welcome,” he says. “You came for musk ox and stories. Come in.”
We follow Jim down the hall and into the kitchen. Two men, one young and one old, look up at us from the table and smile. The two kids follow at a safe distance.
“Are you sure we’re not intruding?” Annabel asks.
“Intruding,” Jim says. “No such thing up here. I even allow my grand-kids in.” He makes a face, and the two children run shrieking with pleasure down the hall. “Now, sit down.”
Chairs are dragged in and we’re introduced. “My son, Joseph.” Jim points to the younger man. “He’s the one who can’t control those kids.”
“They take after their grandfather. What can I do?” Joseph says, shaking hands.
“That’s Noah, my father.” Jim indicates the other man. “He told me all the stories I know. He’s so old he lived through most of them.” Noah gives us a nod and a toothless grin.
“Our wives are quilting tonight, so it is up to us to entertain.” Jim opens the fridge and hauls out a large plate with a roast on it. He carves a pile of slices and places them on the table in front of us. The meat is dark, almost purple, and blood oozes from the center of each slice. “Have some musk ox,” Jim orders. “And tell me it’s not the best meat you have ever tasted.”
I hesitate, but Annabel picks up a slice and takes a bite. As she chews, blood trickles down her chin. “Wow,” she says. “That is awesome. It melts in your mouth.”
“The trick is to not overcook it,” Jim says.
Annabel stuffs in another mouthful. With less enthusiasm, I lift a piece and take a bite. The strong smell is the first thing I notice. It almost stops me, but I keep going. The taste is unusual but not unpleasant. And Annabel’s right—it’s incredibly tender. I look up to see everyone staring, waiting for my verdict. “Good,” I manage, “but I don’t think it’ll be on the menu at McDonald’s anytime soon.” Everyone laughs, and I take another mouthful. As if I’ve given permission, everyone grabs a slice and tucks in.
“So you’re going to look for Franklin,” Jim says.
“I don’t think we’ll be looking,” I say, “but the cruise promises to visit places where he was. A lot more is being discovered now that the Erebus has been found.”
Noah snorts loudly and says something under his breath. Jim laughs. “Noah says he wasn’t aware that the Kabloona was ever lost.
“My family originally comes from the east,” Jim explains, “near King William Island, where Franklin’s ships got stuck in the ice. Noah’s great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather, met some of Franklin’s men.”
“They ate each other,” Noah says.
“What?” I ask, pausing with a slice of musk ox halfway to my mouth.
“These are southerners, Noah,” Jim says. “Don’t be telling your gruesome stories.”
“No, he’s right,” Annabel says. “There are stories of cannibalism.” Noah nods enthusiastically. “Many of the bones from King William Island have marks that could only come from cutting up the bodies.”
I drop the slice of musk ox back on the plate.
“You’re spoiling the boy’s appetite, Noah,” Jim says. Noah gives me his toothless grin.
“The story I want to tell,” Jim goes on, “is about the spring when my great-great-grandfather was on a seal-hunting trip.” Noah nods again, and Jim turns to Annabel and me. “On the ice near the south shore of King William Island, they met a party of Kabloonas dragging a sled. They talked with them as best they could with signs and a few words. The men said they had come from the west and that their ships had been trapped in the ice. Then the two parties went their own way.”
“I’ve read about that story,” Annabel says. “There were about forty men, and they were starving.”
Noah is shaking his head. “Only four Kabloonas and not starving,” he says. “If starving, they would have eaten the dog.”
“Better than each other,” I say, and everybody laughs. “Do you know when this happened?”
“The year that the seal hunting was good,” Noah answers.
“Back then, my people didn’t count the years the same as we do today,” Jim explains. “But it’s a good question. I have thought much about it. From other stories, and from what the historians have written, my best guess is the spring of 1850.”
“That’s two years after the note was left at Victory Point,” Annabel says.
Jim nods. “Things are never as simple as the books tell us. And Noah has another story.”
We all look at the old man, who nods for Jim to continue. “The summer after they met the four men and the dog, Great-Great-Grandfather’s family hunted seals among the islands to the west of the Adelaide Peninsula. When the ice broke up, they camped on an island where they found Kabloona graves on a ridge. And there were bones scattered along the sandy shore. They also met a family who said a huge ship had been found in the ice earlier in the year. The family had gone aboard and taken some useful things. But the ship sank when the ice broke up. Only the masts were left above the water.”
“Do you know where the island is?” Annabel asks.
“All I know is that it is a small, sandy island with a ridge along its middle. And there were three pillars of stone on the top of the ridge. I’ve kept an eye out when I’ve been out that way, but there are a lot of islands thereabouts.”
“If the Erebus spent the winter nearby,” Annabel says, thinking out loud, “those who died on board might be buried on the island. I wonder—”
“If the four men and the dog were the last to leave the ship before it sank,” I interrupt, getting drawn into the speculation, “they would have known they weren’t coming back to the ship…”
“And they couldn’t carry all their records with them,” Annabel goes on.
I finish our train of thought. “They might have buried the records on the same island.”
“There are many clues,” Annabel says. “Cryptic notes, abandoned supplies, weathered bones, stories and now a complete ship. But how does it all fit together? It’s like a jigsaw puzzle with so many missing pieces.”
&nb
sp; “Look,” Jim says, waving his finger in the air like he’s following a fly.
“I can’t see anything,” I say.
“It’s the Franklin bug,” Jim says. “I think you have both been bitten.” Everyone laughs. “Now you see what has fascinated thousands of Kabloonas ever since Franklin and his men disappeared.”
“It doesn’t fascinate you?” I ask.
“It’s a good story, but I am not a Kabloona. I don’t need to know everything. What we know is what we know, and that is enough. Besides, isn’t it good to have some mystery in life?”
Jim tells us more stories about the past. He also tells us tales of his trapline and his hunting. We hear stories about being stranded on ice floes and being stalked by a polar bear. We’re about to leave when Jim’s wife, mother and daughter-in-law return from quilting. They insist that we have tea and more food. When we eventually escape, with much exchanging of email addresses, I tell him he’ll be the first to know when we find the sandy island with three pillars.
“What did you make of his stories?” I ask as we stroll along Sachs Harbour’s only street in near darkness.
“Fascinating. I wonder if we’re hearing stories that have never been written down.”
“That would be so cool,” I say. “Do you think there might be important records on that island?”
“Why not? Sand’s good to bury stuff in. But Jim said there are dozens of small sandy islands. How would we know—”
“You folks have a good evening?”
I almost collapse with fright when I hear Terry’s voice right beside me. “I didn’t hear you come up,” I say, turning to see him and Rob emerging from the deeper shadows.
“That’s us,” Terry says. “Experts on krill and masters of sneaking up on people.”
Rob snorts out an unpleasant laugh.
I feel strangely uncomfortable, like Terry might have been eavesdropping on our conversation. We walk in silence back to the Zodiac.
Chapter Eight
For almost a week, we cruise along the north coast of Canada. We pass through Amundsen Gulf, along Dolphin and Union Strait, across Coronation Gulf and up Dease Strait. We set off early each morning and anchor in the late afternoon. I spend most of the cruising time reading, keeping a journal and taking photographs for our school project. Annabel mostly reads and takes notes on her library of Franklin books. She tells me the interesting bits to put in my journal, so I’ll look smart without having to work for it.
After we anchor each day, we explore using the Zodiac or kayaks. We’ve seen seals, walruses, countless birds and the occasional caribou. We have passed and been passed by several other boats, but the landscape is so vast and empty here that after only a few minutes’ walk inland, you feel like the only people in the world.
“Here we are, at the heart of the Franklin mystery,” I say. Annabel and I are on the deck of the Arctic Spray, watching the sunrise and enjoying a breakfast of eggs Benedict, pancakes and orange juice. The mornings are getting colder, and today there’s a skim of frost on the ship’s rail. We’re wearing our warm jackets to keep out the chill wind. Yesterday we sailed across Queen Maud Gulf and are now anchored off a cluster of low islands. “How are you enjoying the cruise so far?”
Annabel finishes her last mouthful and says, “Life on board ship is okay. The food is amazing, and everything is comfortable. But the company could be better.”
“I know what you mean,” I say. We’ve hardly seen Rob and Terry since we left Sachs Harbour. They only appear at meals, and then they scuttle off before anyone can talk to them. “I suppose they’re working on their research.”
“If their research can be done in their cabins, they could have stayed home. I expected that they’d be off taking readings and collecting samples at every opportunity.”
“Maybe the area they’re going to study is later in the cruise,” I suggest.
“Maybe,” Annabel says. “Billy and Martha are nice enough.”
“Yeah,” I agree, “but they seem to think that the best part of a cruise is sitting on deck dozing.”
“And their only topic of conversation is how much better all the other cruises they’ve been on were.”
“That’s not fair,” I say. “Martha can also complain that there are no onshore tours.”
“And Billy keeps telling Moira that it would be a good idea to bring weapons along to kill any game we see.”
“I’m sure Moira thinks that’s an excellent idea,” I say, and we both laugh. “If she asks me one more time how I’m doing, or if I need anything, I’ll scream.”
“Her relentless cheerfulness is a bit hard to take. I don’t think we’re cruise people,” says Annabel.
We sit in silence, watching the rising sun paint a bank of clouds to the north vivid shades of pink and orange. The islands are dark silhouettes against the bright sky. “Do you think the Erebus is nearby?” I ask.
“It must be,” Annabel says. “It’s in Queen Maud Gulf, and Jim said it was a few miles off some low islands.”
“Do you think the answer to the mystery is on one of those islands?”
“Could be, but which one? They all look the same from here.”
“I know that people have been searching for the answer to the Franklin mystery for 170 years,” I say, “but I can’t help hoping that we’ll find something.”
“It might not be as unlikely as you think,” Annabel says. “For those 170 years, most people believed that the ships were crushed in 1848 and that everyone died on a hopeless trek down the coast of King William Island. The discovery of the Erebus and Jim’s stories suggest that at least one ship wasn’t crushed and that not everyone died in 1848.”
“So?” I ask when Annabel doesn’t say any more.
“People search where they expect to find something,” she says.
“So they wouldn’t have searched near where the Erebus was discovered.”
“Not as thoroughly as along the shores of King William Island,” Annabel points out. “There are dozens of island over there. Any one of them could be the one that Jim’s ancestors were on.”
“It’d be so cool to find something. I dream of finding an old musket, an officer’s sword or skulls.”
“I dream of finding a piece of paper. A last message telling us what happened. Trouble is, finding anything would be horribly frustrating.”
“How so?”
“Because we couldn’t touch it. We’d have to leave everything exactly as we found it for the archaeologists to work on.”
“I suppose so,” I say, “but it would still be cool.”
“Good morning, you two.” Moira’s voice intrudes from behind us. “How are you doing? Anything you need?”
I choke back a laugh.
“Good morning, Moira,” Annabel says. “I don’t think we need anything at the moment. We’ve just had a lovely breakfast.”
“Excellent,” Moira says, and I cough loudly. “We’ll be anchored here for the day. What are your plans?”
“I thought we were heading up to King William Island today,” Annabel says.
“That was the plan,” Moira says, her smile firmly fixed in place. “However, there are reports of ice drifting down the coast of King William Island, and the captain wants to avoid it. You may have noticed that the wind has changed.”
“Yes,” Annabel says. “It’s from the north and a bit colder.”
“There’s a storm over the Arctic Ocean,” Moira explains. “It won’t affect us, but it’s pushing broken ice in odd directions. Best to be careful.”
“Absolutely,” Annabel agrees. “We don’t want to end up like Franklin’s men.”
Moira doesn’t find this funny. “Enigma Tours takes the safety of our passengers very seriously. We would never put anyone in harm’s way.”
“Of course not,” Annabel backtracks. “I didn’t mean to suggest that. Could Sam and I go exploring some of those islands if the Arctic Spray’s not going anywhere today?”
“I
don’t see why not. I’ll organize the Zodiac to take you over.”
“We could take the kayaks,” I suggest. “They’re short enough to fit in the Zodiac.”
Moira looks uncertain. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. I wouldn’t want you going off to different islands.”
“We’d just use the kayaks to explore the coast of the closest island,” Annabel says. “It’s easier than walking.”
“I suppose that would be all right. I’ll tell the chef to make some sandwiches and flasks of tea. Be sure and dress warm.”
I resist the temptation to say, “Thanks, Mom,” and nod. Moira hurries off.
“Do you know what?” I ask.
“What?”
“It’s going to be an excellent day.”
Chapter Nine
After we collect our flasks, packed lunch and Annabel’s weighty book about the Inuit stories, we head to the stern, where the Zodiac is tied up. To our dismay, Rob and Terry are already there. They are dressed in military camouflage gear and carry backpacks much larger than our daypacks.
“Thought we’d come with you and collect samples,” Terry says.
Annabel shrugs like, What can we do?
The Zodiac is crowded as we bump our way over to the island. We’re hauling the kayaks onshore when a large red helicopter thumps above us. It banks and does a circuit of the island. I see a pale, plump, smiling face wearing round sunglasses in one of the windows. I only get a brief glimpse, but I have a feeling of familiarity. “Do you think that’s part of the expedition diving on Erebus?” I ask.
“Could be that they check out anyone coming near the dive site,” Annabel says, sounding distracted. The machine circles the Arctic Spray and then heads off to the north.
The crewman driving the Zodiac puts the motor in reverse. “I’ll pick you up in time for dinner,” he shouts as he turns and zooms back toward the ship.
Terry lifts his backpack and heads inland. Rob follows him. “What are you collecting today?” Annabel asks.
Rob doesn’t stop, but he turns his head. “Plants,” he says.