Death on the Barrens

by George James Grinnell

  During one of our innumerable holidays a few days earlier, we bowmen had been sitting around the campfire chewing the fat off the hide of a recently killed caribou when Peter dropped by for a cup of tea. Joe Lanouette, who was almost equal to Bruce LeFavour in the brilliance of his social grace, had launched us into the absorbing and stimulating topic of which we would choose if our wish could be granted: the meal of our dreams or the woman of our dreams?

  The answer had been so obvious that we all immediately began describing our favorite desserts, saving the entrées and appetizers for later. Peter looked at us, puzzled. When Joe finally turned to bring him into the conversation, Peter said it was of a woman that he had been dreaming. Our looks betrayed our shock and disbelief, but he was serious.

  It was no secret that Peter’s objective was to get back to Massachusetts; less obvious was the possibility that it was not just the Harvard library in which he was eager to lose himself. He never mentioned any girlfriend, but then he never mentioned anything else about his life, either. Peter was a very private person.

  On the August 29 holiday, Art, Skip, Bruce, and Joe built a cairn, Inuit style, and placed a note in it to commemorate our achievement of reaching (or almost reaching) the end of Dubawnt Lake. Peter had taken off somewhere, and I climbed a mountain in the opposite direction. My cycle of insanity had brought me around to thoughts of deserting the expedition and remaining alone on beautiful Dubawnt Lake. My desire to return to civilization had almost completely disappeared. I knew I would not last long, but death in paradise seemed preferable to life in civilization.

  By afternoon, however, I had sunk deeper into despondency. While wallowing in suicidal self-pity, I disinterestedly observed a mosquito landing on the back of my left hand. I raised my right to kill it, an easy target, a sure thing. The mosquito staggered in the near freezing air. I hesitated.

  I had been bitten so many times nearer the beginning of the trip that my arms had swollen much beyond their usual size, but once the swelling subsided, I became more or less immune. I watched the groggy mosquito search for a tender entry point into my flesh. She had purpose, a reason—maybe short of knowing the meaning of life, but at least she knew what she wanted: she wanted my blood so that she would be able to reproduce her kind.

  There is an old Buddhist joke about a pilgrim who visited all the universities around the world in search of the meaning of life. None of the professors seemed to know, so he went on searching until he stood in the mouth of a cave in the mountains of Tibet where a famous bodhisattva lived, said to be the wisest man on earth. Trembling with anticipation, the aging pilgrim asked, “What is the meaning of life?”

  “Life is like a fountain,” the bodhisattva replied.

  “It is?” the pilgrim questioned.

  The bodhisattva looked puzzled: “Isn’t it?”

  Suddenly the meaning of life came to me. I had lost my civilized lust, but I was suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to father a child. I now realized that what this planet needed, in addition to five or six billion more mosquitoes, was five or six billion more Grinnells. No wonder the bodhisattva in his cave was at a loss when presented with the question: he had failed to share his cave with a woman!

  Enlightenment (of a sort) had at last come to me: women are the vessels of the Logos through which the blood of the food chain must flow from now to eternity. Oh wonderful mother earth who gives birth to us all! I let the mosquito drink until she was so bloated she could hardly take off. I helped her into flight and then walked slowly down the mountain.

  There was, however, a problem. We had not seen any women for about two months, or anyone else for that matter, and were not likely to see any until we reached the outpost at Baker Lake.

  “I’ve g-g-got to get out of here,” Peter said, his entire body quaking with emotion. “I-I-I can’t s-s-stand it anymore!”

  What had enabled Peter to remain focused on returning to Harvard while the rest of us ventured off with Art into the spiritual Garden of Eden is anyone’s guess, but the vision of a woman can do powerful things to a man. However, because we shared canoe and tent, Peter was in a difficult position: he could not get back unless I agreed to go with him.

  Slowly I nodded my head. “Yes,” I said, “yes, yes.”

  “Art’s a g-g-great guy. I l-l-love the Arctic. I want to c-come back, but I’ve g-g-got to get out of here.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Yes, yes.”

  “Everyone’s g-g-gone nuts! We t-t-took a holiday today, one t-t-two days ago, and another the d-d-day before that.”

  “Tomorrow,” I said.

  “… c-c-crazy. Everyone has gone nuts!”

  “If you want to strike out on your own,” I said, “it’s OK with me. I’ll come with you.”

  “… madness. It doesn’t make any sense! I mean I love it here. I want to c-c-come back. Art’s a great g-g-guy, but everyone has gone c-c-crazy.”

  “If you want to leave, I’ll come with you,” I repeated. “We’ll pack up in the morning and take off.” Peter stared at me, dumbfounded as if he were trying to figure out exactly what I was telling him. “We’ve got most of the food in our canoe,” I said. “When the others get hungry, they’ll paddle a little faster.” Peter and I had always been the first over the portages, and ours was the fastest canoe. I thought it might be fun to strike out on our own and watch them try to catch us.

  Peter continued to stare at me, silent for a long time. Finally he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.

  The next morning, Peter and I got up, joined the others for breakfast, packed our canoe, and without saying another word embarked down the lake. Peter had his own set of maps that he had bartered from Joe for cigarettes and chocolate. He secured them under the straps of his canoe pack as he had seen Art do. At first I could feel the power of his paddle strokes and see the waves curl away from the bow as our canoe surged boldly ahead toward the oblivion of that distant horizon, where water meets sky and the lake disappears along with everything else, except the vision of a distant woman.

  As the morning wore on, Peter’s strokes became less assertive and then stopped altogether. I looked around; Peter was studying the maps.

  Art’s gray canoe and Skip’s green canoe had left the campsite but were heading off in a different direction.

  Peter picked up his paddle and continued down the lake, his strokes more and more tentative until they stopped again. More map study. A few hesitant strokes. More study. I waited. He handed me the maps. I looked at them, nodded, and handed them back. We paddled a few more strokes, but his lacked conviction. Finally, as we were passing an island, he swerved suddenly and ran the canoe up on the beach. Art’s gray canoe began to make a slow arc and turned toward us. I urged Peter to continue, but he refused to leave the island.

  So it was that on August 30, Peter and I left the expedition and then rejoined it. Probably no one had noticed, except perhaps Art, who was astute enough to head off in the wrong direction in order to determine just how seriously Peter wanted to be on his own.

  There is a Buddhist joke about a disciple seeking enlightenment.

  For years the disciple pesters his master, who eventually pushes him off a cliff. Remembering himself, the master yells to the falling disciple, “You’ll find satori on the way down.”

  CHAPTER 18

  The Garbage Dump

  I think over again my small adventures, my fears, those small ones that seemed so big for all of the vital things I had to get and to reach, and yet there is only one great thing: to live and see the great day that dawns and the light that fills the world.

  —OLD INUIT SONG

  The night that winter came to us, lovely and very cold under a full moon, Art dreamed that his canoe lay overturned in a frozen basin below a rapids. His wife, Carol, was calling him home:

  September 2: As I dozed yesterday I had a scary dream of being on a frozen lake with men, finding the ice of the lake frozen into artifacts. One big circle, a tent ring, floated loose as I
stood on it; and in clear water below I could see a gray canoe (mine?) broken and resting on the bottom among caribou bones. Then Carol appeared and urged me to leave, but I continued to stand on the ice and fritter away my time. Rather a clear dream. Full moon tonight. Must get out of here soon, and will.

  The day Art dreamed this, we were camped before another gorge, deep and impassable. I had pitched our tent in the most exposed position possible to capture the spectacular view. Peter moved it to a more secure location before the blizzard hit.

  For the next four days, wind, rain, sleet, and snow lashed our tents. The green canoe was almost lost when a gust strong enough to lift its ninety pounds carried it to the edge of the gorge. Luckily, Peter and Skip were returning from fishing and caught it before it went over.

  When the blizzard eventually exhausted itself, we crossed the river and portaged down the gorge over a sandy esker where caribou trails made the walking particularly pleasant.

  At the beginning of the trip, Bruce and Joe had been the slowest packers, far slower than Art, but times had changed. Bruce and Joe were now in good physical condition, while Art had become weaker. Everyone had finished carrying his three loads while Art had not completed even his second. For Bruce, Art’s slowness was a matter for indignation. He was voicing his criticism at the bottom of the gorge where everyone had collected, ready to launch the canoes. I slipped out of camp to find Art while Skip defused the situation by suggesting that Bruce go out and kill another caribou.

  After walking for half an hour or so, I came across Art’s pack and then discovered Art a short distance away studying some tiny stones that had been polished by the ice. He talked to me about his daughters; he wanted to have something beautiful to bring home to them. I wondered whether he realized the others were waiting impatiently.

  Art’s resolve was growing weaker, and it seemed as though he no longer had the desire to keep up with the rest of us. I had the sense he knew he would never make it home and that he was saddened by the thought. He needed the memory of his daughters to strengthen his resolve.

  Back at the headwaters of the Dubawnt, where his sacred teacup had broken on a rock, Art had had his first premonition. Now, at the end of Dubawnt Lake, forty days later, he had his second. His diary spoke of determination, but still he hesitated. He preferred to linger and to dream. I showed him the pretty pebbles I had collected, and we compared the beauty in each. After about twenty minutes, I left him and went back to pick up his third load.

  The following day, we came across the bear whose tracks marked our previous campsite. The grizzly was browsing about a hillside where puddles of water from the four-day storm had frozen. Art turned his canoe toward shore, grounded it on the rocky beach, picked up his camera, and hastened in pursuit.

  “Say, Joe,” Bruce asked, “where’s your rifle?”

  Joe made no effort to move his cold hands from the warmth of his parka’s pockets. “Buried, hopelessly buried,” he said. “Where’s yours, Bruce?”

  When it spotted him, the bear wheeled around and charged down the hill at Art.

  Ice festooned the canoes. No one wanted to touch the cold metal of rifle barrel and bullet.

  “Don’t shoot it!” Art yelled back at us. “FOR GOD’S SAKE, DON’T SHOOT IT!”

  Bruce’s numb fingers searched deeper in his pockets for warmth. “Buried, hopelessly buried,” he repeated. No one made the slightest effort to shoot the bear.

  Most bear lovers do their loving in the safety of their living rooms. Art Moffatt is the only animal lover I have ever met who, when confronted by a charging grizzly, was genuinely more concerned for the bear’s safety than for his own.

  “W-W-Well, one of you guys had b-b-better get your r-r-rifle out,” Peter stammered.

  Skip climbed out of the stern of the green canoe and splashed through the icy water to shore. He took a picture of Art taking a picture of the bear charging down the hill at him. We bowmen kept our hands in our pockets.

  Suddenly the bear stopped, stood up to it full height, lifted its massive forepaws and sniffed the air, and then came down on all fours and charged again.

  Art never flinched, but the bear did. It stood up to threaten with its immense height three times, and when Art refused to run away, its charges became more tentative. Eventually the bear circled around to cut off Art’s line of retreat to the canoes, but it suddenly lost its nerve and fled. Its massive bulk broke through the ice of shallow ponds, scattering frozen shards that prismatically reflected the sun’s light in every direction; grizzled waves of fur rolled back and forth along its huge body as it fled toward the far horizon and disappeared.

  We bowmen sat in awe, our hands still in our pockets. “Weren’t you scared?” Skip asked.

  Art mumbled something about being terrified, but he certainly did not act it. I had the feeling that if Art had lost his nerve and fled, that bear would have been on top of him in seconds.

  As it grew dark at the end of yet another day, at the end of yet another lake, we saw an unfamiliar object onshore up ahead. A topographical survey team had apparently landed here not so long ago, leaving behind the dregs of aviation fuel in the bottom of a large metal barrel, a pile of cardboard boxes with a scant supply of dehydrated vegetables, and, nearby, a damp Saturday Evening Post, its weathered pages rustling gently in the wind.

  Skip admonished us for disturbing the cache on the grounds that a cache in the wilderness represented a sacred trust that must never be violated. Art, however, pointed out to Skip the difference between a native cache and a white man’s dump. We ignored Skip, listened to Art, and raided the dump.

  Because of the difficulty of finding wood along the banks and islands of Dubawnt Lake, we had used up much of our stove fuel and were glad to fill our five-gallon can with the aviation fuel left in the big blue drum.

  After a dinner of dehydrated spinach, I purloined the Saturday Evening Post and went back to our tent to read but was quickly distracted by an advertisement for Sara Lee frozen cheesecake. Before I knew what had happened, I was transported back to civilization and overcome by restless longings. If only I were back in civilization, I could have all the cheesecake I could eat; it seemed almost too good to be true. I could buy a warm pair of mitts and keep my fingers from freezing. I could sleep in a warm, dry bed. I could get a “good” job, make a lot of money, and get ulcers and commit suicide, just like my father. I tossed the Saturday Evening Post onto Peter Franck’s side of the tent and went for a walk.

  We were camped on the most beautiful site I had ever seen. A stream meandered through a grassy meadow before breaking through a sandy esker to join the Dubawnt River. In the meadow I found the skull of a musk ox, and by the esker I found chert skillfully chipped into elegant spear points. Inuit hunters had been here before us. I picked up a “woman’s knife,” slightly fuller than half-moon in shape, delicately curved and chipped sharp for scraping hides and cutting meat. I wept in mourning for this lost culture, a culture that had sustained men, women, and children for thousands of years in these beautiful surroundings. Now only a white man’s dump remained.

  The long-dead Inuit, who had used the hides of the caribou to cover their kayaks, their tents, and their bodies, had also used the sinews for thread and slivers of polished bone for needles. So skillful had been their art that their clothes were not only warm, but waterproof as well. They tanned their leather by chewing the hide until it became soft and then rubbing the brains of the animal into the hide before smoking it on a smudge fire of heather and moss.

  Across the stream from these elegant tools, which were as artful as they were functional, stood the ugly blue drum of gasoline, alien, emitting noxious vapors. The contrast served to remind me of the values of the Western civilization from which I had wanted to escape. There was no question in my mind which culture was the more beautiful; but to join this culture was to die.

  On average, industrial cultures can support a hundred persons per square mile. Hunting cultures, like that of the Inu
it, whose stone instruments lay at my feet, could support only one person per square mile. Today there are more than six billion persons on the planet, or about one hundred persons per square mile of land. In order to revert to hunting and gathering, we would have to kill off ninety-nine percent of the human population. The Inuit’s was the last hunting culture to survive in North America. Today, its remnants hang around the Hudson’s Bay posts, work the electronic cash registers, watch hockey on TV in the evenings, and drink themselves into an early grave.

  John Hornby and his young companions Harold Adlard and Edgar Christian had tried to return to the hunting way of life along the banks of the Thelon River, a few miles northwest of this idyllic valley, and they followed Nuliajuk, the Inuit goddess of hunters, into oblivion.

  CHAPTER 19

  Blizzard

  The sky’s height stirs me.

  The strong wind blows through my mind.

  It carries me with it and moves my inner parts with joy.

  —UVANUK

  “I-I-I th-th-think the t-t-tent is about to b-b-blow down,” Peter yelled in my ear so that I could hear him above the howling of the wind. He was trying to shake me out of a deep sleep.

  “It’ll all blow over by morning,” I replied groggily and turned my back to him. “Go back to sleep.”

  A short time later, Peter shook me again. He had already rolled up his sleeping bag and was sitting fully dressed on his air mattress, as if he were ready to abandon the tent. “The t-tent p-p-peg on your side has p-p-pulled out,” he yelled. The wind would rise in long wailing howls of about five or ten minutes’ duration, then fall. During the peaks, the heavy nylon sides of our mountain tent snapped like the tip of a bullwhip. Something was scratching and tearing at the outside of the tent next to my head. I listened. The evidence clearly supported Peter’s contention. I was not eager to leave the marginal warmth of my sleeping bag, but the beating and clawing noises of the miscreant tent peg were definitely coming from a spot next to my head. I looked at Peter, fully dressed, blowing on his hands, and wondered if he could be persuaded to go out and stick my peg back into the ground for me. He had just come in from reinforcing the pegs on his side of the tent with boulders, and his hands were nearly frozen from the effort. There was not much hope of reasoning with him; besides, I had to pee.