Coppermine (10 page)

The Dismal Lakes sat on a plateau surrounded by bare, rocky hills, some topped by year-round snow. The sharp, broken landscape was unmitigated by any foliage, and was mauled relentlessly by the wind and weather from the north. So dismal was the series of narrow lakes that the original explorers had spent no time in differentiating between the three or four of them, one flowing into the other. In the interest of precision, Creed thought, they could at least have written Dismal number one, Dismal number two, etc. Or perhaps Dismal, Miserable, Dreary, and Melancholy. The names suited the overcast landscape. But then, as if to demonstrate the contrary nature of the land, when the sun shone and a wind came up to blow the insects away, the little lakes revealed their pretty side, with golden light filtering through the grassy meadows that framed the shorelines.

One night during an endless sunset, Angituk snared a dovekie. He brought it over, still alive, so that Creed could appreciate the fine colouring of its wings and belly. It settled in the boy’s hand, the legs held firmly between his fingers, and he stroked its back and murmured to it to remain calm. Gently he spread out a wing for Creed to see the distinctive patterns of black and white, and the little bird did not resist him.

“He’s male. These markings attract the female from a great distance.”

“Beautiful,” Creed agreed, smiling.

Angituk stroked the creature a few more times. Then, as Creed watched, the boy suddenly pushed his thumb and forefinger through the skin, up under the protective breastbone, and deep into the chest cavity to find the tiny beating heart. He pinched it until Creed heard the pop. The bird was dead and still in a second. Angituk stroked it a little more and then went to prepare it for dinner. It would attract no more females in this life.

They were several days paddling on the Dismal Lakes before they found another portage, following the waters east until finally they carried again and wet their canoe in the waters of the Kendall River, which flowed swiftly toward the Coppermine between impressive canyon walls. The rapids on the Kendall became increasingly severe on the approach to the con-fluence, and they had to unload on a gravel beach and portage everything up over the shoulder of yet another high ridge. They stopped to rest on the way to the top.

On the portage trail, just below the crest of the ridge, stood a stone figure. Creed had seen pictures of these stone men.
Inukshuk,
Angituk called them. This one was as tall as Creed was. A topknot of long, mossy hair blew gently in the wind and gave the impression of life. The figure offered company and an important message: you are not alone in this land. Others have been here and will come again. One strange feature of this stone man was a small cylindrical stone that someone had embedded between the legs as an erect penis. Angituk found this a good joke, but seeing Creed’s discomfort, he pulled it out and threw it away.

“There will be a cache between his feet. Have a look.”

Creed lifted out several flat rocks to find what was there. He uncovered three delicate arrows wrapped in hide. Their shafts were made of willow twigs bound carefully by sinew, guided by feathers, and armed with small hand-pounded copper tips.

“These are beautiful. So delicate. Why are they here?”

“If you need them, you take them.”

Creed unwrapped another item: two ermine-skin slippers with wooden amulets sewn into the toes. There were also six frozen char and caribou bones with meat. Creed put everything back. The boy watched him until he was done.

“Now, come and look at the land,” Angituk ordered with a new authority that made Creed smile. He lifted the canoe again and followed him up to the crest of the ridge.

The height afforded a clear view, past the wild confluence of the Kendall, of the big river and the land known as the Coppermine. It was afternoon and the golden light gilded its vast features. They could see thirty miles of the broad river below them like a vein of earth, making its majestic way north in graceful turns through a barren, treeless landscape alive with endless tracts of wildflowers and carpets of thick, rich grasses. It flowed all the way to the Coronation Gulf of the Arctic Ocean. Angituk spied a herd of muskox along the river within rifle shot, the big glossy black creatures gambolling across the dark green hillside with surprising grace. The boy told him their name:
“Umingmak:
the bearded one.”

The lead bull stared stonily at them from beneath his long horns, his guard hairs like a tattered cloak around his legs. Ravens and golden eagles circled in the skies. An Arctic fox looked up at them from the riverside, his nose searching in the tangled winds for a compelling scent. A plover scurried in front of Creed, trying to distract him from her nest close by with her fraudulent broken-wing display.

Creed noticed the boy’s obvious pleasure. “What is it?” he asked him.

The boy was gazing out over the
land. “Aimavik.
Home.”

“How long has it been since you were up here?”

“Seven summers.” The boy turned to him then and looked into his eyes. “It’s different up here. Do you feel the connection to the land under you?”

Angituk suddenly dropped to the ground and put his ear to the granite rock. “Try it!” Creed had never seen the boy so animated.

Creed went down on his knees, hesitated, then put his ear to the ground near Angituk.

The boy’s eyes flashed. “Can you hear it? The Earth is asking,
Il-víunna-hugí-vít?’”
He stretched out the phrase.

Creed listened. He was quite surprised to find there actually was something, a thrum or vibration.

“What does it mean?”

Angituk took care to make the translation accurate. “It means, ‘Are you who you appear to be?’”

Creed looked at him, startled. “What do you mean by that?”

“It’s not me. It’s the Earth’s question.”

“The Earth should mind her own damn business.”

“That’s all right. The Earth is patient. She does not need an answer right away.”

The boy smiled at him, stood up, easily lifted his heavy load, and descended toward the riverbank. Creed got to his feet. He turned and paused a moment to contemplate the view of the Coppermine flowing lazily to a sea beyond the horizon. He was impressed by this land, its essence of solitude, its indifference to civilization. He shouldered his knapsack, put the canoe once again on his sore shoulders, and headed down toward the compelling waters of the Coppermine River.

Four

They encountered the hunting camp just around the second embankment above the river. Nine Copper Eskimos, an extended family, were cooking dinner. They had three caribouskin tents erected and were simmering a stew in a large soapstone pot over a fire of grass and twigs. They were startled enough when they saw Angituk, but when the
Kabloona
arrived they were terrified. The men grabbed their spears and bows to form a line of defence while the women and children gathered themselves behind and prepared to run away. Angituk called out to them in their language: “Don’t go! We are Angituk and Creed. We are in a good mood. We have no weapons hidden. Who are you?”

The Eskimos calmed themselves a little at this and the women and children tentatively returned. Creed looked at them, noting their finely stitched clothing: caribou-hide coats with shoulders enlarged and pointed, a profile like a Japanese samurai’s outfit he had seen in photographs, with shell and bead designs and amulets sewn into them. Their jackets were short, to the waist, with long tails hanging down at the back to sit on. There were fringes of various furs at the neck and cuffs, with a small pointed triangle of pelt on the bottom edge, below their stomachs. The clothing was fine-looking but far from pristine: food juices and fat drippings matted the thick hair. And as the people came closer, the bodily smells were almost overwhelming.

As Creed surveyed the small camp, he realized there were no forged metals to be found. No guns or metal tools. They used soapstone for their cooking vessels and whalebone for buttons and implements. There was a copper blade like a miniature scythe lying on a flat stone and a copper knife beside it, hammered out of the soft natural metal, but no forged metal of any kind.
These people are pre–Bronze Age,
Creed thought.
Two thousand years before Christ!

Angituk was apparently enjoying himself, pleased to be among his people again and talking to them with enthusiasm. Though he knew no one in the group personally, he explained to Creed that two of the hunters had heard of his grandfather’s people. He asked them questions and teased the children, quite at home. They were as curious about Angituk, the half-white man who could speak to them. They felt with their fingers his strange clothing and smelled him. He was like them but not really one of them.

The hunter-leader, with long hair to his shoulders and a wispy beard to match, solemnly approached Creed, staring up at him quizzically, more than a foot shorter. He offered his hand and they touched fingertips. The man felt Creed’s skin and his brown hair. Others came forward, two men, an old woman, and a little child. They touched Creed’s face and hands. They poked his body.

Angituk spoke with them and then explained, “I told them you come to visit and you mean no harm.”

The old woman looked Creed in the eye. She had amulets and wooden ornaments in her long hair. Then suddenly her hand moved out and down and tightly cupped his testicles. Startled, Creed pulled away.

“What is she doing?” he gasped.

The old woman turned to the others and spoke triumphantly and the Eskimos all laughed. Angituk smiled and translated. “She says you are no demon. You are a man.”

The leader looked plainly into Creed’s eyes and asked a question. But before Angituk could translate, Creed had a question of his own.

“Can you ask him if he knows the hunter Koeha?”

Angituk hesitated. “He has invited us to eat with them.”

“Okay, but what about—”

“They will like it if you eat with them and then they will tell you what they know.”

A woman lifted a wooden board fashioned from driftwood off the soapstone bowl to show the caribou stew she and another woman were cooking for everyone. Creed peered into the dish of half-cooked muck–bone and fur and blood. “Jesus,” he whispered as he looked into their eager faces.

“They’ll feel good if you eat,” Angituk reaffirmed.

Creed smiled at them and tried to sound convincing in response. “Yes. That would be nice.”

“My people on the Coronation Gulf are much better cooks,” Angituk told him. “But try it. It’s not so bad.”

He was given a heaping soapstone bowl of the slimy, repulsive mess and a clamshell spoon. Angituk was also given a bowl and he took two enthusiastic bites to encourage Creed to eat.

Creed looked down at the vile stew and, deciding not to taste it first, quickly swallowed two bites. He nodded and grunted with pleasure as he chewed the almost raw caribou meat and picked pieces of bone and hair from his teeth. The Eskimos nodded and smiled with approval, then they began to eat too, smacking their lips and moaning with satisfaction. Creed was relieved the pressure was off him and subtly put the bowl to one side. As they ate, they watched him out of the corner of their eyes with a natural curiosity. And Creed studied them. They had sewn pieces of animals into their clothing: talons and beaks of eagles, weasel skins, and the teeth and ears of wolves and foxes.

After offering tobacco, Creed asked through Angituk if they knew the hunter Koeha. The leader replied that he knew him well and that they’d seen him two weeks ago at his camp at the mouth of the Coppermine. Koeha was healthy and the fishing had been good. He would stay at that camp until the ocean was frozen in a few more weeks, and then they would go out and hunt seal on the ice. But the next question ended the congenial discussion.

“Tell them we are looking to find two white men—priests—who travelled this way three summers ago. Have they seen them?”

When Angituk translated this, using the words “white shamans” for “priests,” every Eskimo stopped eating and looked fearfully at Creed. Some began to whimper.

“Ask them what they know.”

Angituk spoke to the frightened people and they talked among themselves so he could not hear, all casting worried glances toward Creed.

Finally the leader put his bowl to one side and stood up. He gestured for Creed to follow him to the river.

“What does he want?”

“He wants us to go with him. He has something to show you.”

Cautiously, Creed stood up and followed the leader. Angituk went with them some distance down the path toward the river and around an outcropping of rock to where they could look clearly north down the broad Coppermine, sparkling gold in the afternoon light. The leader pointed and said three days down the river was Bloody Falls. They should go there to look for what they wanted. The leader said some other things, speaking at length. Then suddenly he stopped talking and hurried back up to the camp.

“What was all that about?” Creed asked, studying the winding path of the river as it cut north through the series of ancient headlands as far as they could see.

“He said at Bloody Falls there is an old sled that we should see. He swears he knows nothing more. He and his people did not do anything wrong.”

“What did he mean by that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I have a few more questions for him.”

Creed studied the river for another moment, then began to walk quickly back up the path. Angituk caught up to him, but when they came around the rock to the place where the Eskimos had been camped, they were gone. Only stone circles remained where the tents had been, the twig fire still smoking. They had packed everything and disappeared in a matter of minutes while Creed was speaking to the leader. Creed looked up to catch a glimpse of him on the ridge a hundred yards away, moving quickly south along the river.

“Hey … HEY! What the hell?” Creed called out.

The leader looked back once and quickened his pace. Creed did not go after him. He turned to the boy.

“What else did he say?”

“He said they’re sorry.”