The bitterly cold wind howled across the blue-black night of the Arctic Winter carrying finely powdered snow with it into the small Inuit village. It squeezed its way past the skins that covered the entrance tunnel to the communal igloo, causing the oil lamps inside to flicker while an aged shaman chanted the oral history of his people with an old and sometimes cracking voice. The eerie shadows of him on the icy dome wavered in the flickering light, accented by his arms pointing toward the directions he sang of.

The younger Kaamuit children sat huddled together, their round faces and widened eyes highlighted by the twinkling lamps as they listened. The older ones were watching them. They had heard this chant before and although still frightened by it, wanted to see their reactions.

"Our People wish to move all about the land, but the great Sky God sent the ice that never melts and the great white bear to keep us from the land where the summer sun sleeps."

"He sent the Kabloona with white skins to rule the land of the high sun and the Utkamuit People to keep us from the land where the sun climbs."

He hesitated; allowing tension to grow while the young children huddled even closer while the others watched intently as they waited for what they knew was going to come.

The old man's eyes glowed from the shadows of his face like burning coals, accenting his emotions as he continued the chant with a deeper and more mysterious voice.

"But to the land where the sun falls, He sent 'The Qaakil' mighty fish gods who rule all the waters there!"

Suddenly, he turned toward the children as he faced the West; moving his arms like snapping jaws, startling the children as it always did and shouted, "Men die there!!" And then in a quieter mysterious voice added, "Those lands are forbidden to us."

Years Later

The Inuit man and his woman paddled the qajaits up the sluggish river. Having never been separated from the tribe before, the woman already felt disoriented and unsure of herself, but now her heart raced from fear as they entered the forbidden lands together. The water looked dark and forbidding, giving credence to the warnings of the shamans. She frequently looked over toward the man, trying to draw on his seemingly confident bearing as they moved along.

They were scouting for a group that wanted to separate from one of the Kaamuit tribes because overpopulation had begun to strain the available food resources in that area and the resulting hunger had begun to splinter tribal unity. Unable to find a suitable site in the lands normally inhabited by them; desperation, along with a weakening belief in the shaman's tales, had caused her husband, one of the tribal leaders, to take them into the forbidden lands. She was able to accompany her husband because she had no suckling baby.

Now well into their quest, they entered one of the nameless lakes that dotted this region of the Northwest Territories. This lake had a large bald island in the middle and the couple paddled toward it to set up camp for the night, trusting that its location would protect them from some of the insects and any large predators in the area.

They had no sooner disembarked than the man noticed a large herd of caribou crossing a bay at the far end of the lake. A grin split his features as he pointed toward them and turned toward her with a smug "I told you so" look.

They climbed back into the little kayaks and started toward the caribou, he holding a spear across his lap because the old rifle that they carried wouldn't be needed to get just one animal. They rapidly approached the herd and then silently drifted into them. He was concentrating on the caribou and didn't notice the large dark objects moving under the water. A wild melee ensued and then stopped as the last caribou to make it climbed up the other side. When the bloodied waters finally became still, the kayaks were gone.

1988

The late morning sun, low in the sky and dimmed by mist gave the town a dreary look. John Stanton, standing alone on a wharf next to some bags of gear, watched the noisy "Beaver" plane that had deposited him there taxi out into the inlet and then lift off. When the noise dimmed, the plaintive cry of a gull and the cold salty smell of an adjoining marsh seemed to accent the lonely feeling that had come over him. He wished that the plane had waited until someone met him.

He was at the small town of Sandy Inlet on the Hudson Bay in Canada's Northwest Territories. He looked at the bright yellow plane tied next to the floating dock. The Beaver pilot had told him that it belonged to his guide George Ikuutqaq and was the plane that was going to carry him up north to what he hoped would be the ultimate wilderness trip; a trip he had been promising himself as far back as the war.

His ownership of "Stanton Electronics" had been both a blessing and a curse, making him wealthy enough to do whatever he wanted, but demanding so much in return that he found it difficult to get away for any meaningful recreational time. Providentially, his brother Charles had joined the company several months before and was now proficient enough to take over for a while and give him a well-earned rest. Charles, wealthy in his own right, had surprised John when he came to him a short time after selling his own transistor company. He said he had become bored and wanted some work.

Even though John's blonde hair was becoming thin and his waistline a little beyond what would be called athletic prime, a surge of youthful excitement began to replace the lonely feeling as he again took in the alien surroundings. He was finally on his way!

A slight frown accented the normally serious mien of his face when a thought took away some of the enthusiasm. He remembered that his wife Sally hadn't been too happy about the trip. When she found out that he was heading into the wilderness for his first vacation in years she had rightly made a scene. After all, because of his work her vacations had been alone except for a quick weekend here and there.

A wave of guilt swept over him and he promised himself to spend more quality time with Sally and their son Colt. A slight smile took away the frown as he thought of that little boy with the dark curly hair and the bright blue eyes. The hair had been a joke in the family because no one else from either side of the family had hair like it and everyone wondered where it came from. It could have been more serious if it hadn't been for Colt's eyes. They were obviously John's.

He knew that Sally would be expecting some meaningful family times and vacations after this trip and he intended to give them to her. Deep down, he knew that he was being selfish but he couldn't seem to help it, he was driven to keep this appointment, an appointment that had been set years before. As a boy, his fascination with the far north manifested itself by his reading of Jack London's books again and again and of his accumulating a collection of Inuit artifacts. Other boys skied and sledded when a large snowfall happened in their area while he spent his time trying to build an igloo that wouldn't collapse on his head.

The real drive to come up here had started out as a daydream in Vietnam. After being shot down, he had spent a month alone in the jungle nursing his wounds and trying to survive until he made his way out. At night, as he lay in the rotten vegetation, sweltering from the humidity, he would remember those Jack London...