We all would start walking as soon as there was light and each day walk as far as we could. Some parents were careful to watch their small children during these long periods of walking because the young children could suffer a painful dislocation we call azalujuk, which is the same expression used when the runners of a sled start to splay outward. The men hunted along the way, thankful that fresh food was had to replace the dwindling supply of blubber and dried meat.
The older men would point out landmarks to their young sons. The boys were learning about the meaning of life... survival. They would memorize the shapes of distant hills. They were taught how to observe all the things around them. The angaituq [the specialist] was our teacher.
In those days our people had very strong ways to describe things, especially the landscape. The expression tauuunguatitsiniq means creating a picture of a thing in another person’s mind. Our maps were in our mind. We knew the places where one had to be very cautious. We had pictures in our head where animals would likely be at certain times of the year. We knew the favoured locations of caribou and where they would cross rivers. We knew where we could cross rivers in search of them. And when the crossings were too deep, we would take a caribou skin, shape it into a bag, stuff it with dry moss, and paddle safely to the other side. One of our most important maps we had in our mind was a map of all the shallows, the ikaniigiik. Without it, travelling over long distances would be very difficult.
We gathered together before starting out, as I explained, and often would start out going inland as a group. Later we would separate into small family groups, each going to its preferred locations along a familiar route. By the time we reached the places where the caribou were plentiful, their coats were in the very best condition. Understand that though seals were our main food supply, caribou were vital for our survival in winter. From their back came the sinew to sew their skins needed to make the winter clothing that kept us from freezing to death. The meat and the marrow from their bones nourished us. We used portions of their antlers to make tools. We dressed in their skins. We slept on their soft skins in a warm tent made of their skins. It was as if for part of a year we lived inside a fat, warm caribou.
Sometimes we would agree to meet again at certain places along the way but, most certainly, we would agree to meet as a group at the end of our journey inland north of Natsilik [Nettilling Lake]. It would take at least a month to reach it. By then our journey was only half-completed. We began our return home at the time when days and nights were of equal length [late September]. If a certain family did not show up within a few days of our agreed departure time it was no big worry; they may have had some reason to stay awhile or take a different route for part of the way. The time we began to show some concern is when we got back to our main camp and there was still no sign of them. Some people would decide to winter over at Natsilik, especially if there was a lot of food around.
By the time the caribou had mated, the sea ice was becoming thick enough to travel upon [mid-November]. If one was fortunate to have a good dog team, we would make the journey all over again to Natsilik, but this time it was easier, for we travelled by sled. Because the conditions of snow and ice could change from day to day, one had to know how to get to a desired place by many different routes We not only hunted we also trapped white foxes. Now it was important to know which lakes and rivers had treacherous places where the ice was always thin even during the coldest time of the year. It may surprise you, but we sometimes met Igloolikmiut [people who had travelled all the way from Igloolik] at Natsilik. We would hunt and trap during the winter and once more return to our camps at Sikusiilaq about the time when the ringed seals were born [late March].
When you were young it was important to be on the land with an angusuitug, a good hunter, a very competent person. Your mother and father gave you life but it was from an angusuitug that you learned how to stay alive.
Pingwartuk who gave me the secret of staying alive.
A BIT OF SILVER PAPER
Pingwartuk was the first Inuit elder I met in Cape Dorset and the first to take me out on the land, which often meant going out to sea. Compact and deceptively strong, Ping, as we called him, had hands that were as gnarled as ancient Arctic willows yet as dexterous as those of any artist. His face looked like well-tanned leather, for he was out on his boat as often as weather permitted. At the end of the season, his skin was the same hue as a Portugee, the term Cape Dorset Inuit used to refer to black-skinned people.
Lukta, son of Qiatsuk, brother of my beloved Issuhungituk.
Ping’s name means a gentle and friendly plaything and in fact he was well known for his jovial manner and delightful countenance — he was like a smile on two feet — qualities that obscured the fact he was a serious and competent hunter and trapper. His laughter, especially following some antic that caused him injury, was infectious. “Laughter,” he once said, “is very good when things are bad.”
But his laughter was not reserved for hard times. As I wrote in Silent Messengers, Ping was completely at ease with the qallunaat, the white men, who often sought him out for help, guidance, and the use of his boat. One day we were out hunting seal with a well-known writer from New York City. Unfortunately for the writer, no seals were to be had. As the day wore on, one finally surfaced near the boat, dove back into the water, and then returned to the surface where it was met by our hail of bullets. The seal seemed to elude us for quite some time until it finally swam away. I don’t believe our guest from New York City ever realized that our elusive prey was, in fact, a stone-cold seal animated by a mischievous Ping. He had rigged the animal with fishing lines and was playing it like a puppet.
Of all our trips together, one stands out. The August day began with the two of us lying on a hilltop watching a great flock of sea pigeons. Their singing caused us to abandon hunting. We lay down on the rocks, inhaled the sweet scent of Arctic heather, and gazed out into the icy blue of the Hudson Strait. We watched icebergs sail in the distance and made out the pale mirages of ghostly islands looming on the horizon. The Earth shimmered. After a long while, I turned to my old mentor and asked him: “If we were never to see each other again, Angak [Uncle], what words would you choose to leave with me to remember you?”
“I would tell you,” he replied, “always place yourself in a position to take advantage of that which is about to happen.”
This formula for staying alive meant doing those things required to improve one’s chances of success and those things required to lessen one’s chances of disaster. Nothing was more directly related to staying alive out on the land than the chanciest thing of all — sila, the weather. Sila’s unpredictable behaviour affected all living things. Neither astute observation nor magical incantation could remove all risk.
The power and influence of weather is reflected in the vast number of words and expressions describing it in the Inuit language. Words enabled the intelligent person to carry out a multitude of observations, classify them, and assess the nature of the prevailing conditions. The particular colour of the landscape, the structure