The Middle of Everywhere (6 page)

Mathilde gives me a scowl.

Then, just like that, Tarksalik stands up on all four legs. “Tarksalik!” we say, all of us calling out her name at the same time. For a moment, the heaviness I've been carrying with me like a suitcase since yesterday morning lifts. Surely this means Tarksalik will be able to walk—and run—again.

But then, just as suddenly as Tarksalik got up, she drops back down on the blanket, landing with a heavy thud. She didn't even manage to stay up for three seconds. How is she ever going to run again?

Mathilde is not discouraged. “Good work!” she calls out. “Beautiful dog! Smart dog! Wonderful dog!” I notice Mathilde looks prettier when she's not being so bossy.

Tarksalik's tail shifts a little on the blanket. I get the feeling if she had more strength, she'd wag it. I guess even dogs like compliments.

“Up you go, Tarksalik!” Mathilde insists, tugging again on the scruff of the dog's neck.

This time, Tarksalik refuses to budge. And when Mathilde tries again, Tarksalik makes a low growl and bares her fangs. I back away from the blanket.

“I told you she isn't ready yet,” Dad mutters.

Mathilde glares at Dad.

“Okay, okay,” he says. “You're the boss.”

Down the road, a snowmobile makes a chugging sound. A minute or so later, it pulls up in front of Dad's place. The driver is so bundled up inside his parka I can't see his face.

Whoever it is turns off the engine but doesn't get off the snowmobile. He just sits there, shaking his head while he watches Tarksalik and us. Though the stranger hasn't said anything, I can feel his disapproval. The dog is still refusing to stand up.

“Joseph!” Dad says, getting up from the snow and heading for the snowmobile. “I guess you heard about what happened to Tarksalik.”

The man named Joseph raises his eyebrows. On my first night here, Dad explained how sometimes the Inuit use body language instead of words. Raising your eyebrows like that means “yes.” Then the man lifts one mittened hand so it covers his mouth. In Montreal body language, that means there's something he's trying not to say. I don't know what it means here.

Mathilde nudges Dad and then looks over at me.

“Uhh, right,” Dad says. “Joseph, this is my son, Noah. I think I mentioned he'd be spending the term with me. Noah, I'm sure you've heard me talk about Joseph. He runs the Individual Path of Learning program over at the school. He works wonders with some of our kids. If it weren't for him, there'd be a lot more kids out of school in this town.”

I feel Joseph sizing me up. “You're going to need better mitts than those ones,” he says to me, “if you're coming winter camping with me and my students this weekend.”

Winter camping? I don't have a problem with summer camping. Summer camping is great. You get to hang out in nature, roast marshmallows and pee in the woods. But camping in minus-thirty-degree weather is another story altogether. Why would anyone want to go out and suffer on the frozen tundra? I mean, what's the point?

Dad and Joseph exchange a look. “Uh,” Dad says, “I haven't had a chance to talk to Noah about the winter camping trip yet. He doesn't know you invited the two of us to come along. I've been so darned busy with this dog.”

When Dad says the word “dog,” Joseph looks over at Tarksalik and shakes his head again. She's still sprawled on the blanket, only now she's started panting, probably from all the exertion. Her belly shakes with every breath. Mathilde is rubbing behind her ears and calling her “beautiful dog” over and over again. If I had to have my knee replaced, I wouldn't want Mathilde for a nurse, not even if she kept telling me what a good-looking guy I was.

Joseph doesn't say a word, but I watch his eyes land on Tarksalik's rump, where the fur is still tufted and encrusted with dried blood. He doesn't ask how the dog is doing. I'm sure he's thinking what everyone else in town besides Dad and Mathilde and me seems to think: that Tarksalik would be better off if we put her out of her misery. That we're making her suffer for nothing.

I think of the vet clinic near my house in Montreal. In the mornings, there's often a lineup of worried-looking people waiting to get in. They've got their cats in carrier cages and some of the dogs wear special dog boots to protect their paws from the snow and salt. Joseph would definitely not approve.

“Listen, Joseph,” Dad says, “I'm not going to be able to go camping this weekend. I'm going to have to stay here with Tarksalik. You know, keep an eye on her, make sure she gets her meds.” Dad catches Mathilde's eye. “And her exercise.”

“Uh-huh,” Joseph says. “What about you, Noah? You coming winter camping this weekend?”

A picture of me and Dad—me on the couch, Dad in his armchair with a pile of essays at his feet—flashes through my mind. Tarksalik is lying next to us on her diaper-bed. And Mathilde comes over first thing in the morning to make sure Tarksalik is getting exercise. I can see Tarksalik baring her teeth, then moaning in pain as Mathilde forces her up.

Winter camping is about the last thing on earth I want to do.

No, second to last. The very last thing I want to do is spend a weekend in Dad's dog infirmary.

“Do you think you could manage without me?” I ask Dad.

“Sure thing, Son. No sense in both of us being cooped up here all weekend.”

“In that case,” I tell Joseph, “count me in.”

SEVEN

I
spot Steve outside his house when I get home from school the next day. Though it's only four in the afternoon, it's almost completely dark outside. Steve is carrying a plastic bucket. When he sees me, he waves me over.

“Whatcha got there?” I ask, pointing at the bucket. The outside is frosted over.

“Fish heads for the dogs.” When Steve exhales, his breath makes a smoky cloud.

I know it'll be gross, but I look inside anyway. The silver fish heads glisten in the dark. Even worse, the fish eyes, glassy and frozen, seem to be staring up at me. My stomach—which has always been what my mom calls “sensitive”—lurches.

“They eat 'em raw?” I manage to ask.

“Absolutely,” Steve says. “Fish heads are one of their favorites.”

Steve raises Inuit sled dogs. He has a dozen of them living in wooden pens behind his house. Four are pups that were born in the fall. They've still got their soft puppy fur, but their legs are already getting long. I can hear the dogs yapping, probably because they can smell the fish heads.

“Fish heads are high in protein,” Steve tells me. “If you catch any Arctic char when you come winter camping with us this weekend, you keep the heads for me, okay?”

“News sure spreads quick in this town,” I tell Steve.

“Sure does. But hey, a new guy like you comes to George River, and everyone wants to know his business.” Steve's voice turns more serious. “How's Tarksalik?”

“I haven't been back to Dad's yet. Mathilde says Tarksalik needs exercise. Dad's not sure Tarksalik's ready for that.”

“Mathilde's probably right,” Steve says. “One of my sled dogs got hit last winter. Same sort of accident. Mathilde was a big help.”

“What happened to your dog?” My voice cracks. I'm afraid Steve'll say his dog died.

“He's good as new. And I'll tell you one thing: he sure learned to stay away from trucks.” Steve pats my shoulder. “Tarksalik's gonna be fine.”

I sure hope Steve's right.

Steve isn't the only one in George River who raises sled dogs. Dad told me Joseph is raising them too. It's part of a project to reintroduce Inuit sled dogs to Nunavik. Steve and Joseph think reintroducing Inuit sled dogs might be a way to get the Inuit back in touch with their roots and give them more pride in their culture. “Some of them have trouble with booze. Maybe it'll even help with that,” Dad had told me.

“Why do sled dogs have to be
re
introduced anyway?” I ask Steve. The two of us are walking over to the pens behind his house. I'm carrying a bucket now too. The dogs are barking even more now that we're getting closer.

“It's a sad story,” Steve says. “You sure you want to hear it?”

“Uh-huh,” I tell him. “I wanna know.”

Steve sighs. “Well, you need some of the history first. Not too boring for you?”

“Nah, I don't mind.”

“When southerners first came to Nunavik, they set up trading posts, like the Hudson's Bay Company. The arrangement wasn't all bad. The Inuit got stuff like rifles, sugar and tea in exchange for fox furs. And though the Inuit still migrated for the hunt, some of them started settling near the trading posts. Matter of fact, that's how George River came to be.

“But the southerners didn't really understand the Inuit's nomadic ways. And I guess it was hard to keep track of people who didn't stay in one place and hard to get them medical care when they needed it. The southerners thought the Inuit would be better off if they had a permanent settlement, so they helped build towns like this one.”

Steve and I both stop for a second and look out at the town. There's not much to see. A cluster of prefabricated wooden houses, the school, the clinic, the community center and, in the distance, the gas station. In many of the houses we can see the eerie gray glow from television screens.

Steve takes a breath. The sad part of the story must be coming now. “In the nineteen sixties, the RCMP said the sled dogs were rabid, so they shot them.” The words come out flat—Inuit-style—but I can tell from the way the lines on Steve's forehead have tightened that he's upset.

“Shot them?” It's an awful thought.

Steve nods.

“Did they really have rabies?” From the way Steve said it, I already know he's not convinced.

“No one knows for sure, but the Inuit who were around in those days—like Charlie Etok and Matthew Snowflake— insist the dogs weren't sick. They say it was just another way to keep the Inuit in one place. The Inuit relied on those dogs for transportation and to take them out on the hunt. Killing those dogs was like chopping off the Inuit's legs. And you know, some of them still haven't forgiven us.”

“
Us
?” I say. “We weren't even up here. I wasn't even born yet.”

“Me neither,” Steve says, “but like it or not, we're still
Qallunaat
.”

“
Qallunaat
,” I say, trying out the word. Now I remember that Charlie Etok used that word when he told his legend.

I'm about to ask Steve if he needs help feeding the dogs when Etua comes running out of the house. He's wearing his red and blue Spiderman pajamas again. The kid obviously has a Spiderman fixation.

Steve puts down his bucket of fish heads. “Where's your parka, Etua?” he shouts.

Etua frowns.

“Okay, okay,” Steve says. “Where's your parka, Spiderman?”

Etua's face brightens. “Oops,” he says, bringing his finger to his mouth, “I forgot it inside. But I just came out for a minute.
Anaana
saw Noah through the window.” Etua turns to me. “She says for you to come inside for chocolate-chip cookies. They're hot and they smell really good.”

“Get back inside then, Spiderman,” Steve says. “And save a couple of those cookies for your old man.”

I follow Etua inside. Rhoda is taking a tray of cookies from the oven. Etua is right; they smell really good.

The radio is on in the kitchen, and an announcer is saying something in Inuktitut. “It's going to be super cold this weekend,” Rhoda translates for me. “Minus fifty and colder still with the wind. You're going to need to borrow some proper clothes for that winter camping trip.”

“You listening to a local station?” I ask Rhoda as she uses a spatula to transfer the hot cookies onto a plate.

“Uh-huh,” Rhoda says. “We call it the fm—short for fm radio. It's how we get all our news around here.”

The announcer says something else in Inuktitut. There's something I'm starting to like about the sound of the language, even though I have no idea what the words mean. Though Inuktitut sounds flatter than English, it also sounds calmer, as if the people who speak it aren't in a rush, and they don't get too upset about stuff.

Rhoda lets the plate of cookies cool a bit before offering them to Etua and me. We each take one.

“What did the announcer say just now?” I ask her.

Rhoda grins. “He said Lenny Etok's grandma phoned to say if Lenny doesn't get home soon and do his homework, he's not getting any fish for supper tonight.”

That cracks me up. “You call that news?” I say.

Rhoda grins. “Around here, it's news.”

Etua closes his eyes as he bites into the cookie.

I'm about to take a bite of cookie when I stop myself. For a second, the chocolate chips look just like the fish eyes in Steve's pail.

“Is something wrong?” Rhoda asks me.

` “Uh, no,” I say. Then I close my eyes the way Etua did and bite into the cookie.

Rhoda wipes her hands on a dishtowel. “You might get to taste seal blubber this weekend,” she says.

When Rhoda mentions eating seal blubber, a bit of chocolate-chip cookie catches in my throat. Luckily, I manage to gulp it down. Otherwise, I think I might puke right there on Steve and Rhoda's kitchen floor.

EIGHT

L
ater that night Dad's doorbell rings, and I open the door to a small Inuit man who shakes my hand Inuit-style. “I heard Bill the teacher had company.” He opens his parka and removes a bundle from his inside pocket. He's brought tiny soapstone carvings wrapped in felt. One is shaped like a seal; another like an inukshuk. It takes me a minute to realize this guy is a door-to-door souvenir salesman. In Montreal, the only people who come to sell stuff at our door are kids with chocolate bars for school fundraisers—or Jehovah's Witnesses coming to sell religion on Saturday mornings.