“I’ve got to go to Herschel Island and learn.... Shall I go to Herschel Island?... When can I go to Herschel Island?”
About five minutes elapsed between these questions, Kak taking his father’s silence for consent.
Then Taptuna spoke. “We’ll see,” was all he said, which, as you doubtless understand, is a father’s speech when he does not know quite what to say and cannot directly make up his mind. Presently he added:
“It is too far for you to go alone. Your mother could not spare you yet. But perhaps we might all travel south this summer.”
“All of us!” Kak scouted the thought. “It would be heaps more fun to go with the Kabluna! Who wants Noashak tagging along!”
His father grunted and walked on silently, planning. A journey across Coronation Gulf and inland to the headwaters of the Dease River would be doubly profitable. The country there abounds in wood. Now wood is very scarce where Kak was living. No trees grow on the southwest of Victoria Island, and the prevailing winds combine with the currents in the strait to carry most of the driftwood on to the mainland. Taptuna had broken the runner on his large sled that winter, and had been terribly put about to find material for a new one. But necessity is the mother of invention in the Arctic as elsewhere—when you must do a thing for yourself you find a way to do it. Eskimos are clever about solving this sort of riddle. Taptuna mourned over the sled for a week and then, needing it badly, set about repairs. Taking a musk-ox hide, he soaked it in water, and folding it into the shape of a plank pressed it flat and even. The next step was to carry it outdoors and let it freeze. This of course it did in a very short time and as solid as any kind of wood; so that Taptuna was able to hew out a sled runner exactly as he would have cut one from timber. When this runner was put in place you could hardly tell the difference between the two; but the new one had a great fault. It would only serve during the cold season. When the sun shone hotly and the snow thawed, the runner would thaw too and go flop—the hide be no stiffer than the skins on their beds.
Taptuna said, “We’ll see,” while he was remembering this broken sleigh, and also that his whole family would need new clothes before next winter. Guninana, like most ladies, had a preference in dress; she considered deerskins the finest and softest for making garments—all their coats, shirts and trousers—everything in fact except their boots, which must be of stronger stuff; and they were sure to find numbers of caribou about Dease River in the late summer when the skins are at their best.
Since he could kill two birds with one stone—that is, supply both their acute needs on this trip, Taptuna decided to go. Kak was at first very scornful.
“Herschel Island or nothing!” he cried, and could only talk of his disappointment.
But later, when he learned that Omialik intended to spend part of the summer at Dease River, and heard the grown-ups planning to meet at Dismal Lake Ford, he decided father’s way was not so bad after all, changed his tune completely, nearly burst with enthusiasm; and bragged about the journey as a great adventure till he made Akpek frightfully jealous.