by Farley Mowat
We landed well below them and went ashore where a solidly massed phalanx of about a hundred bucks was doing what looked like close-order drill, bunched together so tightly their antlers seemed to interlock.
Anxious to shoot some close-up photos, Andy and I crouched behind some boulders and sent Ohoto around behind the herd. When he leapt out at them they stampeded so directly for us that if we hadn’t stood up and yelled and waved our arms madly they could have overrun us. It was scary enough to send us back to the safety of the canoe.
Relative safety because now Ohoto decided to demonstrate how the Ihalmiut hunt caribou at river crossings. They do it from kayaks – we did it from a much-less-manoeuvrable seventeen-foot canoe. They use short spears about four feet long fitted with broad, knife-like points but we had no such weapons.
At Ohoto’s instruction Andy and I paddled the canoe into the midst of a herd of swimming bucks, which began milling about un certain whether to continue across the river or retreat to the north shore. We were soon surrounded by flying forefeet, plunging bodies, and great, swinging antlers. Yelling lustily, Ohoto thrust the blade of his paddle at the backs of the nearest bucks, aiming close to the spine and just behind the rib cage. The paddle did no damage but had it been a real spear it would have cut a rent through skin and flesh to collapse the deer’s diaphragm. A deer so speared will quickly drown. But the ones Ohoto whacked with his paddle seemed more likely to pound the canoe into slivers so with one accord Andy and I paddled us out of the melee and downstream, while Ohoto laughed like a mad fool.
It was a vivid demonstration of something I would not want to try in a kayak, but then I am not an Ihalmiut.
The superb late-summer weather continued and the biting flies remained mercifully absent so one hot morning I decided to have a sun bath. Wearing nothing but boots and binoculars I climbed the escarpment to stretch out on a warm rocky outcrop and dream about my distant wife. The reverie was short-lived. Glancing inland I was startled to see a big white wolf accompanied by two almost black ones trotting across an adjacent ridge.
Many strings of deer were scattered about on the plateau so this seemed like a heaven-sent opportunity to observe the interaction between prey and predator. As the wolves slipped over the ridge and out of sight, I grabbed my binoculars and hared off in pursuit, au naturel.
This part of the plateau consisted of a series of low ridges separated by grassy swales in each of which groups of caribou were grazing their way south. It was ideal country for my purpose. I could keep watch from the ridge crests while the wolves crossed each valley, then, when they dropped from view over the next ridge, could sprint to the next elevation and watch them traverse another valley.
Sweating with excitement and exertion I breasted the first ridge expecting to see frenzied action as the wolves came down among the caribou. It was disconcerting to witness a scene of perfect tranquility. About fifty bucks were in view lazily grazing while the two black wolves and their white leader sauntered by as if they had no more interest in the caribou than in the rocks. The deer for their part seemed unaware that death walked among them. Three familiar dogs crossing a farm pasture might have provoked more reaction from a herd of domestic cattle.
As I watched incredulously, the wolves trotted to within fifty yards of a pair of young bucks lying down. The bucks turned their heads negligently but did not get to their feet. To me their apparent disdain for the wolves seemed suicidal. My bewilderment increased when, as the wolves swung up the slope and disappeared over the next crest and I jumped up to follow, the apathetic bucks scrambled to their feet, stared at me in astonishment, and galloped away.
Cresting the next ridge I almost ran into the wolves, who had gathered on the forward slope for some nose smelling and tail wagging. They did not see me duck behind an outcrop and, the wind being in my favour, did not scent me. After a few minutes of what looked like aimless social intercourse but which undoubtedly had meaning for them, the white leader led them off again.
As they meandered down the slope into another valley where scores of deer were grazing, the wolves stopped occasionally to sniff clumps of vegetation and sometimes to pee on them in passing, but showed no particular interest in the caribou.
For their part, the deer evinced an almost equal lack of interest in the wolves. When the pack (or family, as it probably was), now travelling in line abreast, came within fifty or sixty feet of it a deer might snort indignantly before trotting off a few yards to one side of the wolves’ line of advance, but that was all.
I followed the wolves at a discreet distance for several miles as they wove their way among scattered groups of caribou. The reactions of the deer amounted to little more than casual interest verging on indifference, unless one or other of the wolves happened to stray too close, in which case the deer would unhurriedly move away from the wolves’ line of march. There was none of the stampeding-under-threat that our stereotypical imagery of wolf and deer demands.
So far almost all the deer the wolves and I had encountered had been bucks. Now we began meeting small numbers of does and fawns, and the behaviour of the wolves changed.
When the wolves came close to a particular fawn who had strayed some distance from its mother, one of the black ones made a sudden dash toward it. The fawn fled full tilt with the wolf in hot pursuit – both behaving as I had always imagined prey and predator normally behaved. My heart began to thud in anticipation of what looked to be a certain kill.
It did not happen.
The wolf ran all-out for about a hundred yards without gaining perceptibly on the fawn … then abruptly broke off and casually trotted back to rejoin its two companions, who had sat themselves down to watch the chase!
I was dumbfounded. I had been certain the fawn was doomed, as it assuredly would have been had the wolves lived up to the mythic reputation of their kind. During the next hour each of the wolves made similar feints toward fawns, but in every case soon broke off the chase, leaving the putative victims to stop, turn their heads, and stare briefly at their departing pursuers before placidly resuming the endless task of grazing reindeer moss.
It did not occur to me at the time that what I was witnessing was a kind of lupine shopping technique – that these wolves I was following were engaged in testing potential dinners in order to ascertain if any were ripe for the eating – in other words, were ailing or disabled. I had yet to learn that any caribou of whatever age – even a fawn as young as a week or two – could, if in good health and condition, almost invariably outrun even the most athletic wolf. The wolves, of course, were only too well aware of this.
Being ignorant of this salient fact, I was exasperated by the wolves’ unproductive behaviour. I had not run several miles cross-country and exhausted myself just to watch a passel of wolves playing silly buggers. As they ambled off to disappear over yet another crest, I lost my cool.
I went charging after them with blood in my eye. I am not exactly sure what I had in mind, but I wanted action. I may have intended to try chasing down a fawn myself, just to show these lazy dogs it could be done. Whatever. When I came pounding over the ridge, I almost ran headlong into the little pack.
Evidently they had been taking a breather lolling about within a few feet of one another, when a naked human burst in upon them like a bomb. Wolves blew off in three directions, ears back and tails stretched straight out behind them….
And all the herds of deer within sight now began erupting in the stampede I had been anticipating.
Only – and this I realized with some chagrin – the wolves were not responsible for this rout of caribou.
I was the villain whose unseemly behaviour had spooked the denizens of the tundra plains.
– 24 –
OF WOLVES AND WOMEN
There was a sharp frost last night and we woke to the tent being banged like a drum by an easterly gale with driving rain and freezing sleet. Piss-willy weather! Nevertheless, we spent most of the day out in it gathering whatever burnables we
could find, mostly willow twigs and moss, to pile on top of the escarpment to fuel a smoke signal to help Gunnar find us. He is due anytime. And none too bloody soon! Summer gives way to winter without much transition in this country and summer is surely over. In case G. doesn’t make it we’ve built a stone cairn here with a letter in a bottle, giving our plans for going out down the Kazan. But remembering how Charlie Schweder and I had to dice with the devil on Hudson Bay last August, I’d rather Gunnar flew us out. This is the last week Gunnar said he might be able to make it. It’s overcast and windy with the cloud deck dropping lower by the minute. We didn’t think there was a chance in hell he’d come today. But just before noon Ohoto heard an engine.
”Tingmeak!” he yelled and went haring up the hill to light the beacon. Pretty soon a little speck came out of the grey sky and homed in on the smoke. A few minutes later the old red Norseman plopped down on the bay like a big fat duck and waddled in to shore with Gunnar hollering at us out the pilot’s window:
”Pull the plug, you lazy fuckers! If we don’t get our asses out of here right now we’ll be here ’til spring!”
Twenty minutes later we were airborne. Below us Kinetua Bay was veiled with snow scud. We left it as it had been when we came to it – bleak and desolate.
Relief at seeing Gunnar did not last long. I had barely squeezed into the Norseman’s overloaded cabin when he passed me a bundle of letters. Two were from Fran. I ripped them open and the bottom fell out of everything. Both were poignant distillations of misery and despair whose burden was that our marriage had been a mistake and was effectively over. The last letter ended with the naked accusation: You have abandoned me.
The black fates that subvert us all were not yet finished. Emotionally pole-axed as I was, I had to listen to Gunnar explaining through the stutter on the intercom why once again he had not brought in relief supplies for the Ihalmiut.
”No freight scheduled for the trip … nothing from your bosses … Mounties said they was looking after the Huskies … like shit they was … Mountie plane been down south all summer … I landed gas at Windy on the way here and your pal Ootek was there looking for ammo … said his folks wouldn’t make it through the winter without they soon killed a bunch of deer … couldn’t do that ’cause they got no ammo … can’t even get no skins to cover their kayaks … got no nets left either … fucking government’s screwed up as usual.”
Shouting in order to be heard, Andy and I wrestled with the problem of what to do about the Ihalmiut. We decided that one of us must fly out with Gunnar and try to get some action. Desperately anxious to deal with my impending marital disaster, I wanted to be the one to go. We agreed that Andy would remain at Windy and hoped Ohoto could be persuaded to stay with him until I returned.
I did not even step ashore at Windy. While the others ferried our gear to the beach, I sat alone in the cockpit deeply depressed. However, during the ongoing flight, anger at the failure of the authorities to do anything for the Ihalmiut distracted me somewhat from my personal anguish.
The first thing I did on reaching Churchill was to send a telegram to my nominal boss, R.A. Gibson, deputy commissioner of the Northwest Territories. I warned again of imminent disaster threatening the Ihalmiut, concluding with a peremptory demand for aid. Thirty-six anxious hours passed before an answer from Ottawa reached me. It was forthright and unequivocal, stating that ”native problems” were not my affair, that the RCMP would deal with any difficulties concerning Inuit, and ordering me to ”return immediately to Nueltin Lake and carry out the duties previously assigned to you.”
I went to the office of the Churchill detachment of the RCMP, where I was assured a police patrol would be flying to Windy soon.
”How soon?” I demanded.
”A week. Possibly two. Our aircraft is in Winnipeg for an engine inspection right now.”
I offered to stand by at Churchill until the plane returned, then accompany the patrol as a guide and as a source of local information, but the offer was dismissed with a brusque ”Not really your business, is it? We’ll manage, thank you.”
Since there appeared to be nothing more I could do for the Ihalmiut at Churchill, and my own problems loomed large, I decided to go absent without leave and head for Toronto, where Fran and I might be able to deal with our difficulties face to face, and where I might also be able to stir up some public concern for the Ihalmiut.
That evening in the bar of the Hudson Hotel, I was lucky enough to meet an RCAF pilot who was scheduled to ferry a DC-3 to Toronto the following day.
Fran’s reception of me was equivocal. Although she embraced me passionately, she could not conceal her fear that marrying me had been a mistake – not because we did not love one another but because she felt she could not rely upon me.
”Who knows where you’ll go next and how long you’ll be gone? I can’t stand that. I wanted to settle down with you. Here in Toronto, I hoped. That’s where I belong. Is that so bad?”
When I replied that the caribou project was a one-time commitment, she clearly did not believe me.
I had no idea how to deal with this situation. More out of desperation than anything else, I tentatively suggested that, instead of joining me in the autumn at Brochet as originally planned, she return with me now to Windy Cabin where we could try to work out our difficulties and where we would at least be together. To my immeasurable relief, she accepted and underwent a sea change, becoming cheerful, almost ebullient at the prospect of something I had been afraid would horrify her.
There was very little opportunity for her to change her mind. Within forty-eight hours I had bought a pair of horrendously expensive one-way tickets on a Trans-Canada Air Lines flight to Winnipeg and we had assembled an outfit which, haphazard and incomplete as it was, I hoped would suffice to see her through an initial period of wilderness living.
I had expected us to fly from Winnipeg to Churchill but there was no commercial flight available, so we boarded the old Muskeg Special instead. This turned out to be a good thing for it gave Fran a lively and useful introduction to northern life.
I was delighted by her response to the people on the train, but apprehensive about the situation awaiting me in Churchill. While in Toronto I had tried to involve the media in the Ihalmiut cause but my attempts had been met by a massive lack of interest. Starving Inuit seemed to be as distant from the concerns of Torontonians as starving Martians might have been. I could only hope that during my absence from Churchill the RCMP had done what so badly needed doing.
It turned out that they had done what they conceived to be their duty.
Five days after my departure, Andy had hurried out of the cabin to greet an incoming Norseman, which he assumed was bringing me back. It turned out to be the police plane carrying an RCMP corporal on patrol.
”He told me,” Andy recalled, ”he had been sent to investigate rumours the natives near the Kazan River were in trouble. He questioned the two Ihalmiut men who happened to be in camp and, since he didn’t know the language, I had to do what I could as interpreter.
”It was a total screw-up. The Eskimos didn’t have a clue what the guy was after so, anxious as ever to please a white man, they mostly just said eema [yes] to everything he asked … most of which I didn’t know how to put into their lingo anyhow.
”After about an hour of this babble he called a halt and told me there didn’t seem to be any evidence of starvation and our Huskies – that’s what he called them – seemed like a pretty shiftless lot, probably just looking for handouts. He said it was second nature for natives to cry poor and we shouldn’t be taken in by it. Anyway, it was no concern of ours, he said, and we should leave that sort of thing to the proper authorities.
”He hadn’t brought in any relief supplies. After a couple of hours he and his pilot took off again. Not for the Kazan to look at the camps there but back to base. Mission accomplished.”
Fran and I found ourselves stranded at Churchill. There seemed to be no way we could get to Wi
ndy River short of chartering an airplane – something I could not possibly afford and something I could hardly ask the Department to do on my behalf.
I delivered a message to the Churchill radio station for transmission to Andy, telling him I would be back as soon as I could find transport, and that I was bringing Fran with me.
Then I took my wife to the snug home of the Ingebritson family, where Gunnar’s parents greeted her like one of their own, and Gunnar assured me he would somehow find a way to fly us to Windy without bankrupting us.
Gunnar also told me the RCMP patrol had not delivered any supplies to the Ihalmiut. When I visited police headquarters to find out what had happened, the sergeant in command of the detachment tried to mollify me by explaining that he had now assembled a load of relief supplies but had been unable to deliver it because the Force’s Norseman was somewhere in the western Arctic. However, assuming I would be flying to Windy on a government charter, he offered to entrust the shipment to me. Then he fired a thunderbolt.
”One thing…. These are relief goods only. Mostly flour, beans, baking powder, and the like. There’s no ammunition and no rifles. The territorial government won’t spring for anything like that.”
There now remained only one possible card for me to play – the army – an organization I had assured myself I would never again have anything to do with. That afternoon I borrowed Gunnar’s old truck and drove across the tundra to the sprawling U.S./Canadian military base known as Fort Churchill.
I went there emboldened by a report that the Canadian base commander had served in my old outfit – the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment. Fortunately the report was accurate. Colonel Donald Cameron listened intently while I described the plight of the Ihalmiut and emphasized the grim prediction that without an adequate supply of ammunition for their decrepit old rifles, many of the people would probably not survive the coming winter.
Cameron never hesitated.