by Jack Dey
Recognising Bjarni’s unthreatening form, she quickly relaxed and then stretched and yawned. “Another couple of hours would have been good,” she teased.
Bjarni smiled and then gently lifted her face with his fingers and inspected the gouge marks running down from her eye to her lip. The wounds had sealed nicely, pink and healthy, a sign they were healing well and he was happy she wouldn’t reinfect them on their hunting trip.
“They look alright?” she whispered, peering into the old man’s eyes as he examined her face.
“Mmm, yes, you were extremely fortunate. Any closer and they may have done some real damage.”
Bjarni scanned the empty hut and rechecked that everything was in its place before setting off. Once Anunya had been coaxed out of her bed, she joined in his mayhem and quickly, the sled filled with equipment needed for their survival and for food gathering.
Anunya had already attended to the dogs, assembling the team, but she wondered how Shtiya and Akiak would cope being tethered together, having both been used to the lead. An angry, low growl from Akiak soon answered her question and Shtiya bowed to her demand for space. The wilderness was Akiak’s domain and he would have to follow her lead and her experience, just like Anunya was reliant on Bjarni.
Finally, Bjarni covered the cargo well of the sled with a massive muskox pelt and directed Anunya’s attention to it. “You can ride under the pelt once we get moving and I will take the standing position at the back.”
Anunya nodded, knowing this wasn’t going to be a limousine ride. “What’s that?” she asked the first of a multitude of questions and pointed to a steel pole he was carrying.
“Seal harpoon; it doubles as an ice pick.”
Bjarni surveyed the sled before setting off, satisfied Anunya already knew how to set up the dog team.
Anunya watched the old man walk over to the frozen Sund and begin chipping at the ice with the harpoon. With a number of strong stabs at the ice with the implement, he lost the length of the harpoon into the water below and kept moving down the shoreline until the harpoon stabbed at solid ice and remained a good length above the freezing sea. Satisfied he had found a path of solid ice, he walked onto the surface and continued his routine of stabbing at the surface until he was over a hundred metres out.
With a shrill whistle, Bjarni called to the dog team and Akiak responded with a torrent of barking, ordering the dogs to pull the sled and follow her lead. She restrained the eager dogs by lagging behind and caused the tether to pull tight against her, slowing the sled’s movement over the tricky sea ice. Soon the dog team began to associate the directions coming from Bjarni and Akiak’s responses, allowing her to take the lead.
Anunya jumped onto the cargo well as the sled slowly edged its way onto the frozen surface of the Sund and soon she was safely alongside Bjarni as he continued to thrust his harpoon into the ice.
After an hour of painstaking travel, Anunya turned to check the shoreline and how far they had come. The hut was still clearly visible and she estimated they had travelled about a kilometre, with Bjarni finding solid sea ice consistently now. He joined the sled and took his standing position at the back and with another shrill whistled command, Akiak’s bark was accompanied by a sudden increase in speed.
A couple of times Akiak pulled the sled into a large arc, apparently avoiding something and then with the same precision, she would bring the sled back onto a straight line heading for the distant shore. Anunya was confused at her tactic and couldn’t see any reason for her strange behaviour.
“Why does she keep taking these big arcing detours?” Anunya called back to Bjarni from her position on top of the cargo well while the wooden sleds scraped noisily along the ice.
“She’s avoiding thinner ice,” Bjarni responded.
“How does she know?” Anunya asked incredulously, peering out at the frozen landscape and seeing nothing but white.
“In the wilderness tundra, there are many hazards that can easily take your life and nearly all of them are hidden.”
Anunya’s eyes were big and another question was forming in her mind but Bjarni continued before she could speak.
“Akiak is not looking at the landscape, but what is different about the landscape. You can scan the horizon for dangers and miss them every time, however, if you scan the horizon for something that appears to be different, something seemingly insignificant but out of place, then you will find your danger. An inconsequential lump in the frozen sea surface may be an area of weak ice, pushed up by the surrounding forces of the thicker ice and that’s what she is looking for; even a lighter colour or tinges of green may be a concern.”
Akiak barked again and pulled the sled in another huge arc and this time, Anunya saw the tell tale signs of a small mound directly in their path. She pointed as they passed safely, well to stern of the unstable mass. Bjarni smiled and nodded; Anunya had caught on quickly.
In a matter of hours, the hut and the shoreline had disappeared into the frozen backdrop and the opposite, distant shores of the fjord became larger and more defined.
A sudden thought crossed Anunya’s mind and another question plagued her. “Why did you risk the unstable sea ice crossing instead of going around the shoreline?”
Bjarni smiled at the question he knew would come sooner or later. “The trip around the fjord is nearly three days; it’s only five hours straight across and if you know what to look for, it’s safer than the shore journey. Hungry nanuq are migrating back into the area too and they are easier to see out here.”
She nodded her understanding, but the thought of a hungry polar bear stalking them didn’t sit well with Anunya and she went quiet for a time, watching her surrounds.
As the shoreline became more defined, the presence of green coloured patches alerted Akiak and she slowed her pace, waiting for Bjarni’s next command. Anunya pointed to an area of solid white in the distance, in between the patches and Bjarni responded with a pleased nod. His student was learning quickly. He whistled again, pulled the tether to the right and Akiak kicked up the speed and headed for the white ice bridge joining the freezing water to the land.
Soon Bjarni pulled tightly on the tether and whistled, causing the sled to come to a solid stop again only a hundred metres from the shore. He stiffly dismounted from his standing position and grabbed for his harpoon. This time Anunya accompanied him and he handed her the weapon. She peered up at him, her eyes asking a thousand questions while taking the harpoon from his hands, then she thrust it into the ice as she had seen Bjarni do. The sharp steel barely broke the surface from her efforts and assured of the solidity of the ice, she took another step closer to the shore. She was just about to take another step, when she felt his hand grab her arm and pull her back. She didn’t understand, until Bjarni took the harpoon and thrust it into the place she was about to step and the harpoon disappeared full length into the freezing water.
She hadn’t seen a fissure in the ice and his simple move had saved her from freezing to death in a bath of super cooled water. His action seemed to bring about a frustrated frown from Anunya and at the same time, she was thankful Bjarni was at her side.
In a matter of an hour, the sled was back on solid ground and Anunya’s adventure was set to continue. She was just about to ask a barrage of new questions when her attention was quickly diverted.
Bjarni was intently concentrating on Akiak’s strange actions. She was standing, tasting the air.
Bjarni silently reached under the muskox pelt and drew his rifle into plain view. He pumped the breech, never losing eye contact with Akiak, while the other dogs began to search also.
*~*~*~*
Chapter 41
Akiak’s preoccupation with tasting the air quickly turned to disinterest, and she focused on the movement of the other dogs. When Bjarni saw this, his instincts relaxed and he emptied the rifle breech again.
“What was that all about?” Anunya prodded, fearing she had missed something important.
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nbsp; “We were just being checked out by a nanuq, but he’s gone now,” Bjarni answered.
Anunya instinctively moved closer to Bjarni and searched around her surrounds. “How do you know?” she whimpered.
“You always have to be watching for things that don’t fit into the landscape, remember!”
Anunya nodded. “But I didn’t see anything unusual.”
“What about your dogs? What were they doing? Akiak will sense danger long before we will, because her sense of smell is far superior to ours. If she starts tasting the wind... like she did, then you had better take notice. Come on, we should be able to find the nanuq’s tracks and see how close he was.”
In a matter of minutes Bjarni found the tracks, only metres away from where they had stopped and showed Anunya. Her face turned pale, realising how close she had come to a massive bear and hadn’t even noticed.
“This bear was in a hurry to leave,” Bjarni pointed to the indentation of the pad print, clearly showing the front of the track was deeper and heavier while the claw marks punctured the rim of the print, accentuating the haste at which he’d left.
Anunya bent to examine the big fresh print and then stared up at Bjarni. “This thing was huge!” she stated emphatically.
“Nah... he was only a teenager, probably about 400 kilos. The big males can grow to over a thousand kilos.”
“A thousand kilos...?!” Anunya exclaimed, peering back in the direction the bear had gone.
As Bjarni was turning back to rejoin the dogs, he saw another tundra signpost and called Anunya over to explain. She cautiously glanced back in the direction the bear had gone once more before joining him to see what new thing she would learn.
“The tundra has a way of helping out the wise,” Bjarni instructed.
She nodded, remembering his speech from a few days ago.
“If you get lost and you lose the direction you were travelling and particularly in a whiteout, how can you find your way again?”
Bjarni searched her eyes as she thought about his question and then she smiled, coming to an I don’t know answer. “Use a compass?!”
Bjarni laughed. “Compasses are pretty much useless this far north.”
Anunya appeared shocked. ”Why?”
Bjarni shifted on his feet, looking for an easy answer. “Well, basically there is true north, which is the top of the earth; and magnetic north, which lines up with the earth’s magnetic field. Magnetic north is located somewhere in northern Canada and all magnetic compasses will point to magnetic north. That’s a problem where we are, because Canada is actually west of here.”
“So, a magnetic compass will always point magnetic north, which is actually west?” Anunya’s gaze gave a clear indication she was confused.
“Anyway... forget all that, that’s not what I wanted to show you. Just remember a compass is virtually useless to us out here.”
Anunya nodded and followed Bjarni as he stooped to the ground.
“See these tongues of snow?” Bjarni pointed while Anunya squatted beside him, surveying what he was looking at.
“Wow, what a weird looking formation. It looks exactly like a cow’s tongue carved out of snow. What is it?” She prodded the strange formation with her gloved hand.
“At this time of the year, the wind consistently blows from the east and forms these tongues of snow. The tongues indicate the direction the wind is blowing and if you take notice of the direction you are travelling, these tongues will help to reorientate you. If you get caught in a whiteout or heavy fog, you can still find your direction and safety by following the direction indicated by the tongue.”
Anunya suddenly realised the gem the old man had imparted to her; a simple indicator like these snow tongues could save a life in the right circumstances. She was beginning to understand the signposts of survival and the little hints the tundra gave in assisting an astute person to survive. In the five hours since leaving the hut, Bjarni had picked up on numerous small differences in the landscape and read the signposts that the tundra pointed to. If she’d tried this alone, she probably would have died at the edge of the Sund, broken through the ice and frozen to death in seconds, even before her journey had ever begun.
She sat in a squat position, studying the tongues and pondering, lost in the awesome knowledge she had just gained. Then noticing Bjarni had started walking away, she jumped to her feet and scurried to rejoin him, tucking her hand under his arm, all the while nervously glancing back at the bear tracks.
*~*~*~*
The intense quiet of the wide open spaces of the tundra was only interrupted by the occasional bout of barking from the dogs and the constant swishing of the wooden sleds on thick snow. Anunya bumped and jolted along, sitting sidesaddle on the cargo well, squinting around at the stark environment. Her eyes rested on the old man and she began to study his weathered features, wondering why such a gentle human being was wanted by the law. She understood, from her own situation, that the law often stood on the side of the people with the most money and the voice of poverty often went unheard.
“This looks like a good spot to build camp,” Bjarni interrupted her thoughts and whistled as the dogs happily drifted to a complete stop.
Anunya squinted around her environment and then held her hand over her forehead to shelter her eyes from the snow glare. Even as the sun started to set, the glare was still intense.
“Where are we?” she queried.
Bjarni responded, “Milne Land hunting grounds; Ofjord is just to our west, Fonfjord is to the east and Rodefjord is to the south. Milne Land is an island during the summer and the muskox and caribou roam undisturbed and feed to their hearts’ content.”
Bjarni stiffly climbed down from the rear of the sled while Anunya relished the ability to stretch her legs.
“What did we bring to make a shelter out of? There’s nothing but snow for miles,” Anunya slowly turned to face each direction until she stood facing Bjarni again, with an intense gaze.
“Well, what do we have in abundance all around us?”
Anunya stared at her mentor and then replied with the only answer she could think of, ”Lots and lots of nothing?!”
Bjarni reached under the muskox pelt and withdrew his harpoon again as Anunya’s eyes followed his movements. He walked around the area, stabbing his harpoon deep into the snow, causing Anunya to watch him with concern. Then Bjarni pointed to a spot.
“This is good wind-packed snow; it will make excellent material. Bring me the shovel and my butchering knife please, Anunya.”
Anunya searched under the pelt until she found the shovel handle and the knife blade and with a tug, she dislodged the tools trapped around other items in the cargo well. She strode back over to Bjarni, her boots making a squelching sound on the new snow as she walked and then she handed him the shovel and his knife, at the same time shooting him a quizzical gaze.
“We’re going to camp in a hole?” Anunya finally conceded.
“Just watch.”
In moments, the old man had cleared the loose surface powder and exposed a layer of tightly packed wind-driven snow. Then he sliced the uncovered area around him with his large butcher’s knife into blocks: roughly 600 millimetre x 400 millimetre x 100 millimetre thick. Once he had the blocks cut and lifted clear off the ground, he smoothed a place nearby for a foundation and then began placing them in a large circle, carefully shaping the blocks of compacted snow into the right shape so each block locked together with its neighbour.
Anunya’s face suddenly beamed. “You’re making an igloo!”
She watched in amazement as the old man continued cutting more blocks from the uncovered plot and then shaped them with his knife, making sure the blocks had three points of contact with its neighbour. She danced around excitedly as the dome took shape and Bjarni skilfully cut each block to fit.
“Can I have a go, Bjarni?!”
Bjarni handed her the knife and then she cut new blocks of snow from the ground.
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nbsp; “Why can’t we just use the surface snow to cut the blocks out of?”
Bjarni shrugged. “Try it.”
Anunya knew she was about to learn another secret. She raised herself from the hole Bjarni had cut and attempted to slice the new surface snow and found that it just fell apart in her hands. She turned to face him with astonished, questioning eyes.
“The surface snow hasn’t been compacted, and won’t stick together like the compacted variety, but the compacted snow is strong and makes excellent blocks to build an igloo,” Bjarni instructed
“It just feels and sounds like Styrofoam but it’s much heavier,” she quipped.
In just over an hour, the dome structure was nearing completion. Bjarni showed Anunya how to cut the blocks to fit the curved roof and then pound them solidly into place. The last job was to cut an opening in the foundation blocks to allow them to get in and out.
Anunya stared at the completed dwelling. “I hope it won’t cave in on us.”
“No chance. The blocks would have already started to grow into each other and once the overnight temperature has frozen the structure together, you will be able stand on top of it.”
By the time the structure was habitable, it was completely dark and the stars lit the tundra like tiny street lights, while the igloo interior glowed in the light of a small burner. Anunya wriggled into a thick muskox pelt and pulled the fur over herself. Bjarni was laying close by, in a similar pelt. The temperature inside the igloo was a warm zero degrees but outside, the temperature was plummeting to minus 40 degrees. The dogs had been fed and they curled up in the protection of the structure and out of the wind.
Anunya marvelled at what she had learned from her mentor today and a small tear slipped down her face. Somewhere out there was her father, and she longed to find him and lead him to her mother, ending his agony as well as hers. She sniffed away another tear and wiped her face with a gloved hand. Bjarni was filling the role of her dad and she was grateful for his patience and kindness towards her. She was even more convinced than ever that humanity had misjudged and misunderstood this wonderful man.
Her voice cracked in appreciation. “Night, Bjarni.”