Four Quarters of Light

by Brian Keenan

  I asked him which season he preferred, the winter or the summer. ‘The hunting season,’ he answered. And which animal did he prefer to hunt? He looked at me with genuine puzzlement and shook his head slowly. I realized immediately that hunting to him was not a matter of choice or preferment; hunting was something you did out of necessity, and there was a time for hunting every species. Had his father taught him? ‘My father taught me everything,’ he replied. I noticed his tone was getting less dismissive when I brought up family matters. When I asked if he was still alive, he told me he was but that he was out at the airstrip. I assumed he was waiting for a supply plane.

  ‘Chief Evon says that one day you might be chief also,’ I said, changing the subject.

  The statement seemed to pass over him entirely, and he answered flatly, ‘I will never leave!’ I wasn’t sure what exactly he meant, but it seemed to bring an end to our conversation.

  ‘We should go in now,’ I suggested, and we both climbed the steps into the hall.

  The rest of the young Gwich’in speakers were already assembled. In turn, they introduced themselves and explained who their parents were and what they did. Then they related stories about growing up in the wilderness, and all of them addressed the importance of the Arctic Refuge as a home. Most of the young women were at college and would invariably end up working in the cities; only one young woman declared her intention of returning to work in the villages. She had studied and was in her final year as a social work student. But her story was not as cosy as the others. She spoke slowly, often looking at the floor or fixing her gaze on an empty space at the back of the hall. She did not display the same outgoing self-confidence as many of the others. Indeed, her demeanour reminded me of Patrick, though she seemed more withdrawn whereas he was sullen but more assured. At first I thought she was just unused to public speaking, but it was more than that.

  The young girl didn’t just pause to reflect on what she was saying, it seemed that the whole weight of what she was about to say was too much for her. Many of us in the hall shifted about uncomfortably, embarrassed by her discomfort. Then she lifted her eyes from the floor and declared with a faltering voice how she had been raped when she was younger. The embarrassed fidgeting stopped. The whole room sat in suspended silence. Slowly, and with great effort, she explained how she had been assaulted at university, by another native person, and how she had left her studies for several months and come home to her village. It had taken her a long time to learn to live with what had happened. But even as she spoke it was obvious she was still having great difficulty dealing with it. Yet here she was, perhaps eighteen or twenty, opening up to the community of the village, and as she spoke so haltingly I could understand that she believed her own community could help her and eventually take the pain from her. She concluded by stating that she knew many young Gwich’in would have difficulties going into the world outside and that is why she wanted to return and work with her own people. When she finished and handed the Tok on to the next speaker, it was obvious that the strain of her confession had taken a great toll on her, and I was convinced that this was the first time she had spoken of the trauma to anyone bar a few very close friends and immediate family.

  The next two speakers were young men who spoke on the different ways in which the Gwich’in had to take control of their future and assure the future of the Arctic Refuge. There was militancy in their voices, and in its way it inadvertently added to the poignancy of the young woman’s tale. As they were speaking, I noticed Patrick take up a chair and seat himself at the speakers’ table. The reaction on the face of Chief Evon informed me that this was an unexpected event.

  When the last of the speakers returned the Tok to Chief Evon, he simply announced that there was one more person to speak and he introduced Patrick as the finest example of truly living the Gwich’in way of life. A young man, he insisted, who was an example to everyone, young and old. A hunter whose skills and knowledge of the wilderness were without compare, and who used his skill in the service of his whole community. There was never a hungry mouth in the village when Patrick went hunting. But the accolades were lost on Patrick.

  He stood and spoke softly but directly, first giving his name followed by the simple declaration that ‘I am Gwich’in, from Arctic Village’. Then he continued by stating to the assembly what he had told me, that he had lived all his life in the village with his father, who taught him everything he knew – how to track and hunt, how to skin and tan hides, how to read the sky in winter and in summer, how to survive hundreds of miles from the village in the depth of winter. He could sew and fashion clothes from a skin. He could make baskets and he could cook. But as he mentioned cooking I knew he meant that he knew all the rituals associated with preparing animal food. As he continued in his soft, almost self-effacing tone, I had the impression that Patrick was neither speech-making nor self-promoting. He was stating the facts of life in a Gwich’in village, and behind the facts was the rhetorical statement, what more do I need? Also, he was implicitly demonstrating that he had everything he required for himself and his village yet he took nothing from anyone. Unlike the oil industry! I was sure Patrick was unaware of the implications of his speech, and I am sure it took as much effort for him as it did for the young woman. Yet I knew also that Patrick needed to make this honour speech in the same way she did – to locate herself and to give herself an identity the rape had stolen from her; to be part of something that would love her, define her and nourish her. When Patrick ended his short speech by saying ‘No matter who comes or who goes I will stay, for this is my home!’ I sensed he was not so much throwing out a challenge to the oil industry as exorcizing the long-buried pain associated with his mother’s desertion.

  I had to admit that these speeches had more effect on me than all the arguments about the disastrous footprint of the oil industry in the Arctic. They were living testimonies and had the power of living reality over mere facts.

  As we exited I picked up a leaflet, just one of many on display at the rear of the hall. It was about the Gwich’in way of life and the ideals and values that every Gwich’in was supposed to develop in themselves, and display in relation to others. The list read as follows: self-sufficiency, hard work, care and provision for the family unit, humour, honesty, fairness, love for family, sharing and co-operation, responsibility to village, respect for elders, respect of knowledge, wisdom from experience, respect for land and national practice of tradition, honour of ancestors, and, finally, spirituality.

  Patrick passed by as I was mulling over the list. ‘Good speech!’ I said, and was about to continue by saying that I thought his father would have been very proud of him, but part of me thought it would be too patronizing. Patrick, after all, was a man. In any case, it was really his mother’s attention and praise that he wanted, though he hardly knew it himself.

  Later that evening I lay in my tent listening to the giddy fiddle music lilting out across the tundra. I could tell it was going to be another long night, that the revellers would do their best to burn up the midnight sun. The gaiety and laughter emanating from the community hall seemed at first somewhat at odds with the list of qualities the young Gwich’in were expected to display. But as I read through the leaflet again I thought it extremely demanding. If one was to attempt to work out all these qualities in one’s daily life it could make you appear sullen, self-righteous, or just plain dour and boring. So the wild fiddle music, the hedonistic laughter and the dancing were the perfect antidote. Even if it meant I could get little sleep for another night.

  I thought about what the bishop had said in his address, about the Gwich’in being fine theologians, and likening them to the early Christian Church. If one could live one’s life according to such precepts then I could see how one could come to terms with the big question of the human condition and the existence of God.

  I remembered the conversations I had overheard when I first arrived. The young people were talking of movies, videos and cars. The ou
tside world had already eaten into the fabric of village life. The oil industry would bring the adolescent fantasy world closer. Already I was sure that many of the young people who spoke of village life and who were now at university or college would not return again permanently, especially the young women. Yet I concluded that whatever their innocence and naivety, these young people did display a marked degree of integrity, responsibility and respect that was well in advance of their urban contempories in the lower 48 or anywhere else.

  I thought again of Patrick, with his passion and intensity. I remembered how quickly this young man had been caught up and transported by the spirit dances. I also recalled how the chief had praised him for his true Gwich’in qualities. Then I remembered how he had stalked me, wanting to talk but too shy or too stubborn to ask. I was sure there was a great anger buried in him. His questions about Ireland were really an attempt to fill in some of the blanks about his mother, yet in his own way he had become a mother to the tribe, hunting and providing for the village during the long, dark winters. Yes, I was sure Patrick would remain here. The outside world would draw back the restraint on his hurt and resentment just as the wilderness could contain it. Maybe its vast emptiness mirrored another kind of emptiness inside him. He could live with it and lose it here. The code of the Gwich’in allowed him to live in some kind of peace and harmony. Of all the young people who spoke that afternoon, it was Patrick’s speech that was short, direct, even defiant. He had found something that was worthy, and worth protecting. He would not desert it. I envied him.

  Close to the Caribou

  The bowling-ball surface of the tundra on which I had been sleeping for four nights now was taking its toll on me. This would be the last day of the Gathering and I was looking forward to moving on. I had spent part of the last uncomfortable night thinking about Chris McCandless and Patrick. They were of a similar age and both had taken refuge in the wilderness, though culturally they were poles apart. It seemed to me, though, that they were driven by the same aesthetic. The code the young Gwich’in were expected to adhere to would have been something young McCandless would have admired.

  They had both chosen the wilderness as a place where they might find a quality of existence that would nurture them, but it was obvious why Patrick alone would survive. He was part of the wild, and his uncluttered imagination allowed him to live in harmony with the place. Chris, on the other extreme, was an aesthete of the imagination who I felt had brought himself to an intellectual terminus. Perhaps he chose to refine himself out of existence and find some living, revelatory correspondence in the wilderness. Both young men were compelled by different kinds of hunger, one more emotional and the other intellectual. A part of me wanted to believe that it was a love hunger, one human and the other spiritual. Patrick had found the care of his community and the world he inhabited sufficient compensation for his lack of motherly love, and had in his own way become a kind of foster mother to the village. Chris was a doomed Icarus and had flown too near the sun and too deep into the wilderness, and it had taken him into itself.

  You can only receive what the wilderness offers, and already I was beginning to feel that I would find living here very difficult. It would be physically and psychologically very demanding. You would need a code of living such as the Gwich’in had in order to steel yourself against the harshness of life in the Arctic. Everything in their way of life was conditioned by respect, responsibility, integrity and sharing. Chris McCandless had had no-one to share with, and I was already doubting what I could share with these people.

  Eventually I’d had enough of this thinking. I was tired, sore, cold and hungry, and already people were gathering for breakfast. I hurried out of my leaky tent, unashamedly wanting the warmth of coffee and the companionship of people.

  Over a mug of coffee and some moose mince gravy and biscuits some of the camera crew informed me that everyone was packing and heading for Caribou Pass, so if I wanted to catch a ride I should get my gear packed and get myself out to the airstrip in the next few hours. Some of the crews had arranged for inflatable rafts to be flown up from Fairbanks so they could navigate down the Kongakut River that winds through the easterly end of the Brooks Range, where they hoped to film the caribou ‘on the hoof’. There was already excited talk about fifty or sixty thousand animals on the move out of their coastal calving grounds from a pilot who had already arrived and was waiting to load the crews. A four-day float down the Kongakut River seemed thrilling, but I had already learned just how ill prepared I was. I could only just about survive in the village, and in any case I had used up all my film and my pocket ‘idiot-proof ’ camera would be useless in such a vast landscape with thousands of caribou grunting over it and the majestic mountains looming down on us.

  I breakfasted heartily and decamped rapidly, making sure to return the polystyrene boards and plastic sheeting to the caravan. I made as many goodbyes as I could, but they were awkward as I was still an outsider. One of the village elders said to me as I tossed my backpack onto the small Mazda truck that I had arrived in, ‘When you see the caribou you will understand why our brothers, the caribou, need our protection.’ Then he winked and smiled. ‘And you must thank them for letting you sleep on their grave.’ As the truck bumped its way along the dirt road to the airstrip I had an odd feeling that that last statement was more than simply a joke at my expense. Another part of me wondered if this small native village would still be here in five or ten years’ time.

  When our six-seater Cessna took off I closed my eyes as inconspicuously as I could. This time it wasn’t so much my fear of flying as exhaustion. Four almost sleepless nights added to the intellectual energy one spends trying to observe and understand the experience of living in a remote outpost had drained me. We were touching down on the tiny airstrip at Caribou Pass when I was gently nudged awake.

  Everyone spilled from the aircraft enthusiastically. There were a few other small aircraft waiting. Their occupants had already disembarked and were scouting the immediate environs for the best vantage point to film the caribou. Our pilot, who had made this trip hundreds of times, suggested we would find good viewing about a few hundred yards from the airstrip on a bluff top that overlooked the vast sweep of the Kongakut River.

  The hike to the proposed site was quickly achieved. Everyone was too keen to get a sight of the herd as it moved south to worry too much about having to carry heavy camera equipment. I had no such encumbrances and quickly had my tent erected. Within the hour, everyone was on serious caribou alert.

  From our vantage point you could look down on the river as it meandered with effortless indulgence through the valley and disappeared into the distant mountains that filled the horizon no matter where you turned your head. The pattern of sand bars and shingle islands that the river threw up gave it the appearance of a gigantic but magnificently mosaic serpent. The Brooks Range seemed to go on for ever, and to take on the blue hue of the Arctic sky. The silence was so absolute that all of us instinctively whispered, afraid to shatter the impressive fragility of it all. We sat watching and waiting, allowing the silence and the magical light to enfold us. I prefer to think that each of us chose not to speak because a part of us was swept away on that magnificent river and another part of us was gliding through the cerulean haze of mountains and sky. It was intoxicating, because it heightened all your senses and lifted them onto another plane.

  Occasionally a small group of caribou, no more than half a dozen strong, would drift into our sightline and there would be a few seconds of excitement. But this was not what we came here for and none of us would be content until we saw several thousand or so of these creatures rolling across the landscape, shattering the stillness with their beastly presence.

  From another point I could look out over the coastal plain, which has been the battleground of environmentalists and oil magnates for decades. Through a set of borrowed binoculars it looked like a huge empty meadow. This tussock and tundra bog meadow stretched into the famous calvin
g grounds designated ‘area 1002’ by Congress more than a quarter of a century ago. It seemed an ignominious name for one of the most spectacular birthing sites on the planet. But when something is reduced to the blandness of a number it loses its power to impress, and that I’m sure is why the oil interests who want to rip it asunder prefer a number to any proper description. At the moment it was empty and desolate. Within a day, or less, we hoped it would be submerged in a huge ocean of animal flesh as the migration got underway.

  I recalled what the Gwich’in had told me about the caribou. They were extremely sensitive to humans, noise and vehicles. I could understand that any creature born into this silence would be. But I could also imagine looking through my binoculars at a hundred miles of service road, pipelines, oil and air pollution, and a few sickly animals scavenging a living. The Gwich’in also explained that the herd could not simply relocate. This calving ground offered ample nutritious plant growth to enrich the production of milk in the pregnant animals. If that was reduced then the calves would not have enough winter fat to survive and the females would be unable to produce new calves the following year. Everything was so delicately balanced that even the slightest tampering with nature could have dramatic consequences. One of the villagers had explained that even the wolf and the bear do not come here to hunt, for they too understood that this was a sacred place.

  That evening I didn’t miss the fiddle music, and I slept better than I had the previous night. At this high level the ground was less uneven, and I had enough sense to make myself a mattress out of handfuls of bearberry bushes.