3
The Nature of Things
I am the greatest hunter of all the Northland. Who has been to Melville Bay, and all the way over to Point Barrow? I have a friend Makpo, he is old now, but he lives there: peoples livestheir real lives, all beginning at different times, and so ending: I will only visit him when I have killed the Great Ursus-arctos, and bring his fur, teeth, and head to him, if I do not, he will know I died with the bear, if he never sees the bear again: he is old, and as I said, his time is different than mine. As I was about to say, I have been down to Churchill, and to Disko Island. And many other places, so you see I have no choice; --it is me and the Great Grizzly. Yes, yes we have met before, of course. I have seen him from a distance roll like a ball to the bottom of a slope: tumbling like a rabbit, no, like a glacier rat, from miles away that is: he is so big he looks like a rat from miles away, but dont be fooled, if you have to place to hind, and he smells blood, and he senses fear, he will come after you, and he is fast: old, but still fast: like Makpo, he is old now, and he will vanish form his calm and starry look. That is how huge he is. My grandfather said he was old and his teeth were of holes because of age, his teeth must have ached, and yes [Pause I know now he has holes. He saw him in a vision; --he told me that Ursus had to eat animals whole, swallow a marmot and herbs whole. Yes, I can imagine, he has a big stomach.
I have hunted the walrus, even though I am a bear hunter by character, and reputation. But nonetheless, I like hunting what the bears hunt also. They hunt the walrus: I hunt the walrus, maybe I should have been a bear, I think sometimes I should have been. But I do not necessary like hunting with other hunters, although I have many times done so; the division of the walrus among several, gets to be severely small portions for the effort.
I have many dreams, like my grandfather used to have, --but then, then many in the Arctic have dreams, it is not uncommon; --for the real hunter must plan his moves, absorb them, perfection and balance is number one. Or you will be a dead man, a dead hunger, and your reputation will be mocked by all in the drinking nights, the nights we get drunk and toast to the bear hunt. If you live long enough in the Arctic you will discover a natural order to all of this, that they are all, all things connected to one another here. Like the bear and the walrus, and yes, then there is me. Things must live on, and so there is a season for most things. The more you look at order, the more you see and become part of its habitat, it is engulfing, slowly you become frozen alive, and you cant leave this land of ice.
A shaman, like my grandfather was killed by a throat wound; the big bear knew this, and when he was asleep, when my father was asleep, he came over the top of the igloo, his igloo, and with h is weight, he climbed on top of the igloo, and it cracked, the igloo cracked, then with a sweep of his paws, his mighty paws, one sweep, only one: he cut his throat with his claws, and left him there to bleed to death. Yet he never ate him. You see, the order of things must remain as it is. It is told that the Shaman can only be killed this way: and the bear knew it.
When this land has come to its end, my grandfather like Makpo, who now is old, says, the ice will melt, and swallow up all the land, and the weight of it will break the earths foundations, and what is on the bottom of the ocean will rise to the top, and be land, and what was land will be the floor of the ocean. And there will no longer be need for a cold land like this; like the North Pole, and it will go away, --as will the Thule, for Greenland will also disappear. The warm airs will sweep over the lands once again; Greenland stops the warm airs from doing this he told me. Strange as it sounds, I am glad I am living now, so I do not have to live in such a climate. I like this one, this is my birthright.
But I am the greater of the hunters, as you well know by now; I need not tell you this anymore. I am like the bear that makes a hole in the ice for the seal to come and pop his head up for air, and with a grab, pulls the seal out with his claws, and sits down for dinner. I, I in a like manner, find the hole, or make one, and wait for his head to rise, like the bear, and with my harpoon, I kill him. I sometimes hide under the snow, so he cant sense me.
By the North Slope, the winters are extremely cold, and it looks like flat land, but the bear knows better. In the summer ice wedges make the terrain crack. Oh yes, the winter cold is the beast, even stronger than the bear, and me. If you do not acknowledge this, you are a forsaken man; or for that matter, a dead bear. As I was sayingthe winters are very cold, and the land contracts like a woman having bir th-pains. I have walked its mud in the summer, and what is called permafrost, I call it permanently frozen ground, of a color made by the greet treeless architects.
Perhaps you know about the great phenomenon called the aurora, or Great Northern Lights; you should, they are like your blanket. Makpo, who was with my father when he was killed by the Great Bear, Ursus, told me the Great Spirit, took particles from the sun and threw them at the earths North Pole, they were many colors that he threw, and the Pole being a magnet field of sorts, and consequently, this caused the particles to shift, and the colors like a winding long tale of a whale in motion, shifting to a side, it created the lights in the sky. I sleep under these colors, these things: God made features: I am somewhat educated, so I only believe some of these stories: yes, they have truth to them Where else can you find them? Not in a city, I heard of them places, bigger than Barrow, one-hundred time s bigger, unimaginable. You live and die in them big cities and never get cold, or see the lights, or feel the nearing of the bear: him, him right there. How unfortunate.
Let me tell you some more about me, and my journey in life. For the most part, the bearyou bearwere my life, after my mother and father died; and the bear I must kill, so I told myself I knew where he was, and is, and I know how to get him. It is the Great One I want, not his siblings. And he may have many. I have seen the Great One a few times with his children, many years ago. They also are huge now, but not like him. No bear is like him. My uncle told me the bear put his hand through the top of the igloo and killed my father with one sweep, and left Makpo [my uncle, my mothers brother alive to tell the story. He is a cleaver bear.
You may not believe this, but my father in l908, when I was but three years old met a Mr. Cook, he had an expedition. White men come and go. Write t heir books about this land, get what they call money, and go back to the big city and stay warm. They take many pictures to show how brave they are, yet they hire us to guide them, protect them, find food for them, not sure why they dont take our pictures and tell folks back home, their home, they were useless without us. To be quite frank, without the wisdom of my mother, my father would not have lived as long as he did in the wild-cold of this Northland: and without my fathers books, I would not have been educated: a fair exchange: yes, yeswe have different times for different people: my time will end, and yours has, and, well, then that is that I suppose.
White explorers do not structure and trap fox. They dont even know how to do it. You take stones and build a three-sided hut, put a piece of meat in it, when the fox comes to eat it, for he has smelled it long enough, and cannot resist the pain it causes any longer. It is psychological, like wanting whiskey ; they want the blood they smell. Then as he creeps in, and he grabs the meat, the stone on top falls on him, and pins him to the ground, it crushes his ribs, he can no longer fight, or run, even if he lives, he is dead, no means of escape: he is a cripple, if not invalid for any future hunt and will starve to death. He is like a sea shell, empty. It is the order of things, the nature of the land, I know you know this, but I feel good when I say it. Maybe you forgot it.
Many people build igloos, but do not put ice in them for a window: clear ice; you must do that to see the bear coming. And the sledges of wood are no good, yet that is what the men from the great cities bring; they must be made out of whale bone, joined together by seal skin. No nails, no wood. I like the way my people make our own sledges; it is the only way to do it, --if you die in the wild you cannot blame anyone because of a broken sledge then, no one but yourself: it is your fault if your sle dge no longer can go. Long life depends on the pride of your sledge. The runners muse is of bone, whale, seal or walrus. Then you will be safe, I assure you.
Makpo was my mothers youngest brother. He will live a long life, he is a man of many means, --I should say, was, for he is old now. That is why he lives in Barrow.
My mother was a small woman, but not for a Thule I suppose, of which she was one half Thule. She was born in l885. I was born in l905, in a cold month, so my mother told me. She carried me all around. I remember her rounded cheerful face, a long pretty bridged nose; --long thick black hair. Her eyes were not round like mine that is all I can remember. Her skin had a glow to it though. Very strong, she was so very strong, ohoo, shed carry me everyplace on her back, in her sack. She told me,
each person is made for some reason.
They are wise words, but dangerous ones, she implied: if you do not follow through on a life plan, you will miss your opportunity for that mission, that reason. My plan has always been to kill the Great One. Then my desires will end: my plan, my mission, my reason. And although I will survive, my desire, like the whiskey, will rest in peace.
You may be asking yourself: why is he telling me all this, it is because I must. Someone else must know this. It is like the writer, why writes if you do not have someone to read. In a like manner, why talk, if you do not want it to live on: someone must listen. I am sitting right at this very moment in an igloo; I built a few days ago. I have six dogs outside, with orange looking eyes; I can see them through my ice window. The arctic sky is lit up tonight with the miracle lights, they are white, yellow and green. I have five white dogs, and one black and white dog, with tints of brown interweaved throughout his frame: he is the leader. I am a little hungry with all this talking, Id like to have a piece of black bear meat, I l ike that, and it is tender and well flavored. In the past, I have mostly found them in the Canadian area of the Northlands, in the forest south. I was going to mention it before, but I didnt, that is, my grandpa took me a few times to warmer climates south of here, or better put, for short periods of time. And this is where I learned a lot of my hunting skills.
He once took me down to this cold, dark subterranean tunnel, where upon I discarded many objects, old torches laying about, found access to a crypt, skeletons of: children, women; all skeletal remains laying about. He said theythe people the bones belonged to were used for sacrifices. This underworld chamber was of a maddening culture long gone. That is when he called me: The Great Bear Hunter, Tipi. I killed many black bears in that land back then.
But let me not forget what I was about to say, I am in this igloo I have made...
See Dennis' books and travels at: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com
Author:: Dennis Siluk
Keywords:: Chapter Story
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