They loaded the equipment from the igloo they had built for shelter onto the low flat sled, a komatik, in silence. As his father hitched the dogs, Napachee fastened their belongings to it in preparation to leave. The dogs tugged excitedly against the fan hitch at the front of the sled and spread out across the hard-packed snow in anticipation of the journey. With a soft click of Enuk's tongue, the dogs lunged ahead while both father and son jogged alongside. The komatik sped up and Napachee slid on behind his father.
Napachee fought back tears on the bumpy ride home. His father was blind! The world had changed and his father still wanted to live in the past. Everything his father did frustrated Napachee. He tried to understand his father, but the harder he tried the harder it became. They seemed to live in two different worlds. Forty years ago, his father had been born on the land near Cambridge Bay on Victoria Island. He was Inuit and spoke Inuktitut. Cambridge Bay was a small community of only a thousand people, and although it had seemed small, it had been home to Napachee until two years ago.
When Napachee had turned twelve, his father had decided to move west to Sachs Harbour on Banks Island where people were less influenced by the ways of the South. Sachs Harbour was even smaller than Cambridge Bay! People who lived here were Inuvialuit and spoke a different dialect called Inuvialuktun.
Napachee could speak Inuktitut fluently and the Inuvialuktun dialect was very similar so he could understand and speak it well enough to communicate. But all of his new friends, even if they could speak their own Inuvialuktun dialect, spoke English at school and at the game hall.
Napachee's father spoke to him in Inuktitut and expected Napachee to answer him in the same fashion. Enuk's distant relatives had been a mix of Inuvialuit and Inuit and he had hoped the move to Sachs Harbour would bring his family closer to the culture shared by both regions.
And if language wasn't enough to set him apart, there were also his father's old-fashioned ways. Most people used canvas tents when they went hunting, wore parkas bought at the local Co-op store and used snowmobiles to speed across the ice. Napachee's father insisted on chopping snow blocks to build igloos while they were out on the land, wore caribou clothing fashioned by Napachee's mother and used dog sleds to go hunting.
As they made the bumpy journey home, Napachee gazed out across the sea ice. His face was hot from the sun and snow, and sleep began to drift over him. A comfortable darkness wrapped around his thoughts, and enveloped him in a dream world. Napachee felt himself drifting towards a faint light in the distance. In the dream the brightness grew stronger and became the beckoning lights of a city far off on the horizon.
As the days passed, the sun lifted itself higher above the horizon in one continuous sunset: orange, pink and blue. The polar bear cub could see Okpik, the snowy owl soaring high above in search of prey. His ballet-like flight hypnotized the young bear as the bird soared and dropped with ease on the currents of air. He seemed to hang motionless, and then without warning dove at an unseen prey. The air exploded in a white cloud of feathers as an unsuspecting ptarmigan was caught in mid-flight, plummeting to the ground in a death spiral.
The snow felt crisp under the cub's paws and it bounded ahead to climb a great bank to get a better view of the surrounding landscape. Suddenly, it heard a faint but approaching humming sound. It had never heard this sound before and although it sensed danger it continued towards the top of the snowbank. It placed its paw on the crest of the bank and lifted its nose to look over. A gust of wind rushed against its face and a deafening roar filled its ears. A huge creature rose up in the air, and roared with all its might. The cub turned to run and tumbled down the bank.
Dizzy from its quick descent, the cub shook its head and began again to run. The creature followed from above; its broad shadow danced ahead on the glistening snow. In a split second, the cub felt a stabbing pain in its back and fell to the ground. It tried to rise, but could not and an unfamiliar dryness filled its mouth.
The cub lay on its side, its tongue hanging lifelessly out of its mouth. It turned its eyes skyward and saw the beast directly above. Heat swept its face and made the snow dance in a circle around the cub's body. The form slowly lowered itself to the ground and settled some distance from the cub's motionless body. Darkness was closing in. Two strange faces swam before the cub's eyes, then faded to black. That night a feast was held at the community centre. Caribou were rare near Sachs Harbour (they seldom swam across to the island) and hunters had just returned with a catch to be shared with elders and others who were not able to participate in the hunt themselves.
Napachee sat and listened as the drummers told their stories through song and dance. The drums were made from hoops of wood with animal skins stretched over their surface. When accompanied by songs in Inuvialuktun or Inuktitut the dancers moved in rhythm, telling the story of the hunt and the animals that had been captured with the movement of their bodies. Napachee watched as one of the dancers moved forward to mimic the throwing of a harpoon.
Napachee had always enjoyed listening to the stories of his grandfather and the other elders, but tonight he could not keep his mind on the songs of the hunt. The argument he had with his father kept repeating in his mind. When he tried to tell his father things about life in the South or things he learned in school, his father changed the subject. When he had asked for a computer last Christmas his father had given him a new rifle and scope. No matter what he said his father refused to listen. It was only with his mother's help that he managed to convince his father to order him more modern clothes from the South.
"What's wrong?" Napachee's mother asked now. "You are not with us tonight."
"Today I told Father I do not want to be a hunter, but he wouldn't listen. He doesn't care what I want; he only cares about what he wants!"
"Your father loves you very much, Napachee, but he is afraid of what you say. The way of the South is very different from ours and the city is not a place that has been kind to our people. Enuk wants you to be happy, but he does not know how to tell you his feelings. Be patient. Soon you will be old enough to decide for yourself what you really want, and your father will accept your decision."
"He will never understand me. Sometimes I think no one will. I see the same faces every day, nothing ever changes. I can walk from one end of town to the other in ten minutes. Father says that the land is ours and it keeps our spirits free. He is wrong! The land and the ocean around us are a trap! A trap that keeps me here and keeps me from finding where I really belong!"
Napachee slipped into silence and stared across the crowded hall. "I heard there are some white men in town from the South. Pannik saw them today. I am going to visit them tomorrow."
"Do not encourage him, Talik!"
Napachee's father had overheard their conversation and burst in angrily.
"You know nothing of the world and are not old enough to know what is right. All of this talk about computers and television and the city. If children keep leaving for the South and show no interest in our traditions soon they will all be forgotten. Your friends don't even speak their own language! They watch television instead of going hunting with their fathers, or hang around the game hall in the evenings instead of listening to the elders. What good will all this lead to? The more you go to school the more you want to move to the South. You are not to speak of these things again Napachee! Our way of life has been good enough for us for centuries and it will be good enough for you! You are not to go near the white men. Instead, you will go with me tomorrow when I go hunting." With that Enuk turned to leave.
"You are blind Father! Can't you see that our own community is getting smaller every day? One by one everyone is moving south and finding real work! The white man's ways are better than ours!"
"Enough!" Enuk replied angrily.
Napachee rose quickly and stormed across the crowded hall. Enuk saw the rage in Napachee's eyes and watched as he disappeared into the crowd. The angry face that he saw was his son's, but it was a son he felt he no longer knew.
"I don't know what he wants from me, Talik," Enuk said to his wife. "I look at him and