The Last of the Gentlemen Adventurers: Coming of Age in the Arctic. Edward Maurice Beauclerk

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      The men had already prepared the breakfast and announced their intention of setting off at once in search of the deer. I decided not to go with them, thinking that they would probably climb the hills at a cracking pace well beyond my capabilities, but after they had gone I planned a little expedition of my own, over the coastal flat towards the banks of a small river and then up towards the hills.

      The climb was gradual and just around the first curve in the watercourse a long narrow lake appeared quite suddenly before me. The surface was swarming with birds, most of them, thanks to the lecture my booming friend of the Nascopie had given me at Pond Inlet, easy enough to identify. There were old squaw ducks hurrying busily through the water without ever drifting far from the main group, diving every so often with a flurry of feet, then reappearing with seeming nonchalance a few seconds later. Their call, a rather melancholy ‘A-ha-ha-lik, A-ha-ha-lik’ is a distinctive part of the summer days in the quiet of the arctic islands. Close to a group of rocks in the middle of the lake, a party of eider duck were taking their ease, accompanied by a batch of pugnacious arctic terns. The terns often nest beside the milder, more long-suffering eiders, thus protecting their eggs from the predatory gull, for woe betide any gull attempting to steal eggs while the battling terns are about.

      In the old days, when the Eskimos depended entirely upon their own skill and ingenuity for success in hunting, they used to hunt the ducks by ‘speed of boat’. During the summer moult, some of the birds had trouble raising themselves from the water to begin a flight. The people took advantage of this fact to pursue them in their large skin boats known as umiaks (women’s boats, because the women rowed them, leaving the men free to concentrate on the hunting), making the most unearthly din and practically paralysing with fear those birds that had not recovered from the moult, thereby reducing each victim to such a state that all the hunter had to do was snatch the duck out of the water.

      Beyond the lake I continued my walk up the slope. The hills rose quite quickly on both sides of the valley, and ahead, in the far distance, a range of snow-covered peaks dominated the scene. Just below me, the river, trapped in a narrow gorge of rock, funnelled into a gushing fall over a short steep cliff drop, the fine white spray drifting far back enough to fleck my face every now and then.

      The sun, already dipping down into the west, stretched long rays towards the snow peaks, softening the hilltops with a golden glow as though to form a link between the harsh black cliffs below and the gentle, faded blue of the sky above. The birds, calling from the lake behind me, still sounded faintly above the rush of water down the tumbling waterfall and these sounds served only to emphasize the profound silence of the gulley.

      I sat on a convenient rock to eat my biscuits and survey the impressive scene. There was nothing in sight in any direction to suggest the presence of man in this valley. Quite possibly I was the first person ever to climb this slope, for it led nowhere and the deer were known to frequent the other arm of the inlet. My wandering thoughts were suddenly concentrated by a sharp cough coming from close by. To my astonishment a fox had somehow penetrated my solitude and was seated on a boulder at no great distance, calmly observing my every move.

      The animal, clearly distinguishable by its ears, looked anything but white in its late summer coat, which was partly brown, partly grey, with only odd patches of dirty white. Perhaps observing my sudden interest, the fox rose to its feet and made off. Very foolishly, I decided to give chase in the hope that it would lead me to its lair.

      Once started, the mad pursuit led me higher and higher up the hill, over increasingly difficult terrain. The fox did not appear to be alarmed at being chased, a state of mind which proved well justified before very long. The animal crossed a small cliff face and sat down on the far side to favour me with a contemptuous stare, and my growing conviction that it would be best for me to give up the pursuit and go home faded abruptly.

      I rushed out on to the cliff face and was half-way across before realizing the danger of my situation. The sudden realization checked my progress so that, becoming hesitant, I slipped off the narrow ledge which gave me my foothold and slithered out on to the face of the cliff which ended sharply a short distance beyond my feet. There was no further firm ground until the mass of fallen boulders down on the plain, about four hundred feet below. A slim root growing out of a small crack in the rock face held my right foot as I slipped slowly down, enabling me to press my left foot hard enough into the face to stop my slide and come to a halt in a position of extreme discomfort, suspended virtually in mid air, directly above what would surely prove to be the rockiest, bleakest burial place imaginable.

      For a moment or two, my thoughts were solely concerned with the estimation of the distance from my position on the cliff to the nearest boulder beneath me and the force with which the rock and I would be likely to meet. When my initial panic subsided, I managed to give out a hoarse cry, but the effort nearly dislodged me completely, so it was several minutes before I dared make the effort again.

      After what seemed an eternity, an answer came from somewhere over to my right so I closed my eyes and kept as still as possible, until at last Kilabuk came up from the far side. He took off his anorak, separated it from the waterproof cover, then tied the two together and, bracing himself in a secure position, lowered the ‘line’ towards me.

      Very carefully, holding on firmly to the anorak, I climbed back up the rock face. With my first movement, the root supporting my right foot broke off and, having served its purpose, fell away down to the bottom.

      Kilabuk told me that they had only just returned from the hills themselves and that Beevee had gone on down to boil the kettle, which was welcome news in my shaken state.

      After a short rest and a meal, I recovered sufficiently to accompany Kilabuk on a seal hunt for what remained of the afternoon. Beevee had brought his kayak on tow behind the boat and set off before us to try his luck.

      Versions of the Eskimo kayak are now found in many parts of the world. Originally, the craft consisted of a light whalebone framework, covered entirely with dried, scraped sealskins sewn together, with only the narrow aperture where the hunter is to seat himself left uncovered. The kayak, pointed at both ends, is extremely manoeuvrable and the art of operating it lies mainly in maintaining the balance, for a sudden movement in any direction can overturn the craft. To overcome this loss of balance, the Eskimos developed the knack of swinging themselves right through the water and back upright again, hence the expression ‘Eskimo rolle’. Wearing sealskins and moving quickly, they could do this without getting seriously wet.

      When Beevee had gone, we puttered off in the motor boat. Kilabuk stopped the engine a little way out, so that I could shoot my first seal, then jabbed accurately with his harpoon to haul the carcass into the boat. All this went a long way to restore my self-respect, badly jolted by the morning incident. Between them the hunters then secured another four seals, so we had a good haul and returned home just as darkness was falling in time for me to boil up a tasty stew from my very first hunting success.

      Kilabuk took a great interest in all the details of my morning adventure. As we had settled ourselves among the deerskins and the light from Beevee’s oil lamp flickered up and down the tent wall, he told me that the people had a story about this kind of a fox.

      ‘There was an Eskimo man, who lived not far away but a long time ago,’ he said. ‘He was a bad man, and the people at his camp tried to talk to him and tell him how bad he was, but he would take no notice. He stole from his friends. He told lies, even to his own family and made much trouble. They could not cure him, so at last, the other hunters became very angry indeed and they went off together to see the angekok, the man who looked after the people like the missionary does now.

      ‘ “Unless you can do something to make this man better,” they said, “we shall have to send for the angekok from another camp to help us.”

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