Ghosts of the Pacific (4 page)

I nodded my head and yelled back. “Yes.”

“Are you the Submarine Outlaw from Newfoundland?”

I nodded again. “Yes.”

“Can we board your vessel and inspect it?”

“No.”

They didn't like that. They didn't respond for a while.
Probably they were discussing what to do next. Legally, they
didn't have to ask for permission to inspect my sub because
we were in Canadian waters. But they couldn't inspect us if
we went underwater, and they knew that, and so they were
asking politely. “We are requesting permission to inspect
your vessel.”

I shook my head. “Sorry.”

They paused again. “It is against the law to refuse us access to inspect your vessel. Do you understand that you are
breaking the law?”

“Yes.”

There was a longer pause. And then: “Are you carrying
weapons of any kind?”

“No.”

“Are you carrying drugs or alcohol?”

“No.”

“Do you want your dinghy back?”

I nodded. “Yes, please.”

“We will give you back your dinghy if you will let us inspect your vessel.”

I
knew
they were going to say that. Shoot! I shook my
head. There was no way they were getting inside my sub. If
they did they could simply say that they had changed their
minds, and Hollie, Seaweed and I would be sitting in a cabin
on board their ship and our exploring days would be over. I
wasn't going to risk that for a rubber dinghy. “No.”

They knew I meant it. Then, they did something that
really surprised me. They untied the dinghy and let it drift
so that I could catch it, then returned to their ship. They
raised the megaphone one last time: “Be careful, Submarine
Outlaw. Don't make us come searching for you.”

I waved back. “I won't. Thank you!”

That was cool. I would remember them for that.

THERE WAS SOMETHING
on the ice. From the distance it
looked like a couple of bales of hay. But I knew it could not
be hay in the Arctic. Besides, it was moving. When we sailed
closer it turned its head and I saw what it was. A walrus!

The walrus sat on the ice like a king surveying his kingdom. He looked like an old man with enormous tusks and
giant whiskers. If he were an old man you'd think he was
wise and maybe fussy.

Sheba had suggested I take pictures and sell them to magazines to pay for my voyages. This seemed like a good time
to start. So, I rushed inside, cut the engine, grabbed the camera and climbed the portal. We slowed to a drift. I didn't
know anything about taking pictures so I just pointed the
camera and started snapping. That was easy enough. The
walrus looked like he enjoyed having his picture taken.

Then I heard the sound of a small boat engine. Turning, I
saw a motorboat approaching. It was carrying about a dozen
people, including young kids. They were waving at me. I
turned around, waved back and took their picture. Were they
coming to look at the walrus? They were Inuit, probably
from Igloolik, the closest community. One of the young men
was wearing only a t-shirt!

They kept waving and I kept taking their picture. The
closer they came, the more they waved. Then, they started to
wave hysterically. Okay, that was weird. Surely they had seen
lots of walruses before? Then I realized, oh, it's the submarine. They had never seen a submarine before. Now I
wasn't sure what to do. Should I stay or should I go? They
were friendly. I didn't want to be rude.

Suddenly the walrus jumped off the ice and disappeared.
Rats! They scared him away. Now they were screaming their
heads off. What the heck was wrong with them? I turned
around and froze. There was a polar bear right behind me.

The bear climbed onto the hull just as I ducked inside the
portal. I didn't even have time to pull the hatch down. And
we couldn't dive without shutting the hatch. I couldn't flip
the automatic switch either, because the bear was in the way.
The motor would burn out against dead resistance.

The bear was so heavy he pulled the sub sideways. I was
afraid he was going to pull us right over. But he didn't. He
stuck his nose into the portal but was too big to climb inside. I looked up. It was terrifying to see a bear so close.
Hollie stood between my feet and I felt him shiver and growl
but couldn't hear him over the sound of the bear's breathing. The bear sounded like a monster. Water dripped from
his mouth and splashed us in the face. I could see only one
of his eyes but we looked at each other. He didn't look like
he was trying to eat us; he just looked curious. With my
heart pounding I pointed the camera and held the button
down.

The bear took a couple of sniffs, then went to the bow and
pushed it down, then went to the stern and pushed it down.
I shut the hatch, let a little water into the tanks, sank a few
feet and watched him through the periscope. I was hoping
he would move to the ice and then I could take his picture
again. Now that I had finally taken the camera out, I wanted
to photograph everything.

He finally swam to the ice and climbed up. He was so big!
Through the periscope I saw the people in the motorboat
watching him. I opened the hatch again, stuck my head out
and took the bear's picture. He was sitting on the ice like a
big white teddy bear. I looked at the people in the boat. The
man in the t-shirt was holding a rifle. He raised it to his
shoulder and aimed at the bear.

“Don't!” I yelled. “Don't!”

The bear turned and looked at the man in the boat. I
yelled at the top of my lungs. “Don't shoot him!”

The man looked at me and lowered his rifle. Now, I
couldn't leave. I had to go over and talk to them. In the first
place, they had saved my life. In the second, I was afraid that
if I left, he would shoot the bear.

I surfaced and motored over. The little kids were still waving when our vessels touched. The older people weren't but
they were smiling politely. I leaned out of the hatch. “Thank
you for warning me about the bear.”

“It almost killed you,” said the man with the rifle.

“I know. Thank you for saving me.”

“You're welcome. How come you have a submarine?”

“I'm an explorer.”

“You're an explorer?”

“Yes.”

“What are you exploring?”

“Well, right now I am on my way to the Pacific.”

“The Pacific?”

“Yes.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“This is one of the ways you can get there from Newfoundland.”

“It is?”

“Yes.”

The young man bent down and spoke to the older people
in the boat. Then he raised his head. “Come and have supper with us.”

I followed them to Igloolik, about ten miles away. It surprised me they would travel so far through icy water in an
open boat. The man with the rifle asked if he could ride
inside the sub, but I explained that I had promised not to
take passengers except in the case of emergency. It was too
dangerous. He nodded his head then asked if he could ride
on the hull. I said, no way, it was far too dangerous. Then I
wondered, was he crazy?

Igloolik didn't look like much from the water. It was just
a collection of flat, plain houses that appeared as if they had
floated in on the tide and stayed. The land was treeless and
barren. The only things that stood up were the houses. I saw
about a dozen fishing boats lying on their sides on the pebbled beach. I wondered what they fished for here.

I dropped anchor in twenty feet, inflated the dinghy and
paddled over with Hollie. The young man was standing at
the water's edge to greet us. We shook hands and he told me
his name was Stephen. Then he introduced me to everyone
else, telling me their names and making sure I said hello to
everyone, even the kids. But I couldn't remember a single
name, except Stephen's.

They made a fuss over Hollie but told me to keep him
close because of the local dogs. I picked him up right away.

The people of Igloolik were the friendliest people I had
ever met. I knew right away I could trust them and didn't
worry about leaving the sub alone. Stephen promised me no
one would climb inside it. He took me on a tour of their
houses to meet their elders. The elders were old men and
women with extremely wrinkled faces, sparkling eyes and
big smiles. They were so friendly I almost wondered if they
thought I was a lost relative returning home. Then we went
to meet the oldest man in the community. His name was
Nanuq. As we walked to his house, followed by a crowd of
kids, I asked Stephen why he was going to shoot the bear. He
shrugged his shoulders. “Why not? Polar bears are good
hunting. It was an easy shot.”

“But . . . why kill it? Do you need it for food?”

“Yes. It is good to eat. But also the polar bears scare the
seals away.”

“Do you kill seals too?”

“Yes. Seals are very good hunting too.”

“But don't you eat fish?”

“Also fish are good for eating. But fish every day is not so
good.”

When we reached the house, the old man was sitting at
the door. He must have been watching us come. He was
ancient. His skin was wrinkled like a dried potato and his
hair was dry and straight like white straw. I had the feeling
that people here aged twice as fast as anywhere else. I wondered if that was true.

The old man's eyes were dark and shiny, like pools of deep
water. He stared at me, yet he seemed far away. I said hello.
He nodded his head up and down thoughtfully, then, very
slowly he said, “The sea . . . is dying.”

“What?”

He took a deep breath and said it again very slowly. “The
sea . . . is dying. If the sea dies, the world dies.”

I looked at Stephen. He smiled.

“Why do you think the sea is dying?” I asked.

Nanuq looked out the window. Then he looked back at
me. He did everything slowly. “No fish. No hares. No seals.
No wolves. No bears. No whales. No caribou.”

I looked at Stephen. “Is that true? Are there no fish?”

“There are some. Not like before.”

Nanuq shook his head. “No fish.”

“What about seals? We have lots of seals in Newfoundland.”

“No seals.”

“But . . . we saw a polar bear today.”

“No bears.”

“He means, not like before,” said Stephen. “Now, the bears
are like ghosts. The wolves are like ghosts. The caribou are
like ghosts.”

The old man seemed sure of what he was saying, but I did
not want to believe him. How could I? It was the worst thing
I had ever heard. How could the sea die? It couldn't. It was
too big. It was too important. Maybe there were fewer whales
and fish and everything else but the sea couldn't die. It just
couldn't. And yet, something about the way the old man
said it really bothered me. He said it softly and slowly, as if
he really knew, not like he was trying to convince anyone;
more as if it were a secret he had heard on the wind or from
ancient spirits or something like that. I wished Sheba had
heard him say it. Then she could tell me what she thought.

After visiting Nanuq, we went to a hall and sat down for
a community dinner. I was served caribou meat with bannock and sweet tea. Bannock was a kind of fried bread that
was really good. The tea was delicious. The caribou meat
was delicious too but it kind of bothered me to eat it. I
wouldn't kill a polar bear and I wouldn't kill a caribou either.
But this was part of their way of life up here and they were
honouring me with this meal. I didn't want to insult them
by refusing to eat what they ate. And so I ate it. Hollie ate it
too.

Stephen asked me how long I was staying in Igloolik. A
month? I almost choked on my bread. I apologized and said
that I couldn't stay at all. I had to sail through the Arctic before the ice came together again. This he understood. I was
glad. Then I asked him if he knew how far the ice reached
across the Arctic. He said the ice would be there until I
reached open water. I asked him how far that was. He said
far.

After supper we walked back to the sub. I let Stephen
climb inside and look around. I figured that was okay because we never submerged or moved. We shook hands again
and I thanked him for the visit. He told me I was welcome to
stay with them any time and that I should stop by on my
way back from the Pacific. As we sailed away, I saw him and
a few others climb into their boat. They were carrying their
rifles.