The Tone was established on Day One at CBC Eastern Arctic when the manager gave me a tour of Iqaluit. Alone in the CBC Jeep, he said, “I objected to you being hired as Show Producer as there is a local candidate who I prefer over you.”
We proceeded on Ring Road while the tour continued, “This is the Sewage Lagoon, this is the Road to Nowhere, this is the Dump…”
And that was just the beginning.
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I stomped out of the Grise Fiord Hotel in a rage, my red boot laces slapping the dirt. I just spent two weeks with my camera man and Inuit male reporter shooting a documentary about Quttinirpaaq National Park on top of Ellesmere Island. In Inuktitut, Quttinirpaaq means “top of the world”.
It felt like the top of the world in Tanquary Fiord when my tent was battered by a blizzard on July 14. The wind was cold but the climate of my male co-workers was freezing. They did not like being directed by a woman, a lesbian. They spoke to each other like I was invisible, laughed at jokes that I was not privy to.
After the storm, I unzipped my tent. An Arctic Hare chewed on the grass at my feet, unafraid as it had not yet met humans. Our camp was surrounded by wildlife. A band of Perry Caribou wandered the hills behind us in search of Lichen. Muskoxen brushed against Arctic Willow to shed last winter’s ultra-warm undercoat nearby. A Polar Bear swam in the fiord and dove for a Ringed Seal. Two Arctic Wolves scouted the perimeter of our camp, looking for quick bite.
After breakfast, the camera man, reporter and I, packed the gear down to the beach where a helicopter would collect and deliver us to the deck of the Kapitan Khelebnikov Icebreaker. Eco Tourism was big news, an adventure only for the very rich.
Camera rolling, we levitated over Gull Glacier, the ice hand reaching down to the Fiord. Then, out to sea for a long shot of the ship and the chop on the water as we approached her. Adventure-seeking tourists gathered on deck to watch us land. I checked the shots off my list and stored it in my pack.
Once on deck, our first stop was the Bridge, where the captain stood in control of his ship. I told the camera man to get a medium shot of the captain, a wide shot of the captain’s point-of-view out the bow window, close-ups of the captain’s hands on the controls and the navigation system. It was a tight space to be in with three men.
I thanked the captain and we toured the ship with the camera, collecting sound bites from tourists – triumphant to have conquered the North-West Passage first hand. Then, out on the deck for the reporter to do his stand up in Inuktitut.
Our flight out of Tanquary was more turbulent than our flight in. The bumps were augmented by the fact that we were exhausted and sick of each other’s company.
The Tundra Tires of our Twin Otter ground to a stop on the air strip gravel. We were back to crash for the night and rest for our flight home tomorrow. The men were distant, content to play cards with each other, eat bleeding steaks, frozen veg, instant potatoes and watch porn before loping to their lairs for the night.
A thick fog had rolled in overnight. There would be no plane out that day, the next day, or the next. Three days became three weeks. Suffocating, I was trapped with two men who were hungry to satisfy themselves by establishing power. Their daily dose of porn affirmed their right to demean and debase women. The fuck you attitude was underscored as a tacit threat that they could do anything that they wanted to me and get away with it.
When the Fog lifted a bit, I had a chance to escape the testosterone and I took it. Walking in town, I saw the skinny bitches with their hungry pups. The small ones enticed as they tugged the sleeves of Inuit children. Pups squealed and yipped as kids laughed and pulled away or wrapped their arms round a pup’s belly and carried it off. This game of dominance was stamped into both species. They would depend on each other for life.
Outside town, I enjoyed fresh air and sea wind in my hair. Ice growled and heaved under the quick shadow of an Arctic Tern. I heard the Tern whistle as stones struck stones with each step. Careful steps knowing that if I were injured, I’d be at the mercy of the elements till found. If found. What a trip! Breathe this moment, remember it forever!
WOOF woke me – almost too late. I was surrounded by a pack of sled dogs, testing their chains. Blue eyes watched my blue eyes. These dogs were not playful. They were ravenous males, mean from confinement, hunger, the sting of the Musher’s whip and wounds that they inflicted on each other as pack dominance was established. DANGER! Every year, sled dogs killed someone. They would smell my fear like bacon frying.
WOOF! The Alpha’s low, warning bark.
I WOOFED back at him and stood my ground. I grew up with dogs and knew how to handle them.
Dogs sniffed the air and licked their chops. Curious, restless, they tugged and rattled their chains. A louder growl came from the Alpha and silenced the others.
I faced him and established my authority. “
“BAD DOG!” I shouted in a deep voice.
“BAD DOG!”, I shook my fist at him.
STOMP! DOMINATE!
“BAD DOG!” He looked at me with hesitation.
The other dogs cowered as I threatened him. They knew what humans were.
Maintaining eye contact with the Alpha, “NO!”
STOMP!
I must be the Musher, must command their obedience but had no whip to crack over their ears. I squared my shoulders, got BIG. My hands in fists, I raised my arms and swung them with authority.
STOMP! STOMP!
There was a narrow gap between dogs and I had to weave my way through it.
Shouting: “OH, CA-NA-DA!”
I marched while stomping.
“OUR HOME AND NATIVE LAND!”
STOMP!
“TRUE PATRIOT LOVE IN ALL OUR SON’S COMMAND!”
STOMP! STOMP!
I looked them in the Eyes.
“WITH GLOWING HEARTS, WE SEE THEE RISE,
THE TRUE NORTH STRONG AND FREE!”
STOMP!
“FROM FAR AND WIDE, OH CANADA,
WE STAND ON GUARD FOR THEE!”
“GOD KEEP OUR LAND GLORIOUS AND FREE!
OH CANADA, WE STAND ON GUARD FOR THEE!
OH CANADA, WE STAND ON GUARD FOR THEE!”
Once I’m beyond the pack, “STAY!”, before I turned my back on them.
My heart was racing. The dogs were pacing.
I breathed deeply, thankfully before I attempted to locate the hotel. I did not know where I was, only that the Hotel was on the shore.
I stared up hoping that a Tern’s white belly and black cap would glide by. There! The portent of my direction, I followed. Every step, a careful step – my eyes stole only a quick glance at my red boot laces.
I saw the shore and gained it. Breathe deep. I knew where to go and how to get there. The Sea drew my map. Just beyond my red boot laces, a glimmer. I knelt in the sand, fingers brushing. Gold! A Gold chain with a locket. Inscribed on the locket: Sara.
She must have dropped it looking out to the Sea. Chain and Locket in hand, I looked Sea ward and back. Then, another anomaly – a metal post in the ground. On the post, Sara’s postscript.
She came to Grise Fiord as a young teacher, wandered out on the Tundra and was killed by the sled dog pack. She was interred with that chain and locket round her neck. I was standing on her grave.
The Permafrost moves and heaves with every seasonal change.
This woman was an adventurer like me – her skin, once soft as an Arctic Willow Bud, her spirit, tenacious and precious as Arctic flowers that sleep in darkness for eleven months, burst into bloom for two short weeks and fade.
I knelt in communion, placed my hand where I imagined her heart to be and said a prayer – not to God but to the spirit that we shared. I dug a hole and buried the chain and locket there.
Sara taught me my Rite of the North-West Passage. As I walked back on the shore, my red boot laces transcended the tundra.
