14 Arctic Adventure Page 6

  ‘I ate a couple of mice,’ said Hal, ‘but I didn’t like them any more than they liked me.’

  ‘You were lucky’, Aram said, ‘that your dogs didn’t eat each other.’

  ‘They weren’t quite that hungry’, Hal said, ‘because we cut up a walrus hide into pieces so small that they swallowed them without chewing. I had heard that they lie in the stomach for days before they are completely digested. So the dogs did a little better than we did.’

  ‘If you eat your dogs,’ said Aram, ‘you are apt to come down with a disease called trichinosis and it will kill you.’

  ‘That’s the last thing we would do, eat our fine huskies,’ said Hal.

  Aram said, ‘Another thing that can kill you is sweat. Running along, you are apt to sweat. The sweat turns to ice. Your whole body is encased in ice like a suit of armour. At first it’s painful. Then it becomes comfortable and you get drowsy as the circulation of your blood slows down. And then you die.’

  Hal said, ‘Aram, what would you say is the most dangerous thing on the ice cap? Is it the bear, or the wolf, or what?’

  ‘No,’ said Aram. ‘The most dangerous thing is man. Many crimes have been committed on the ice cap. There are no police up there. The fellow called Zeb nearly finished you off.’

  Hal laughed. ‘Well, he didn’t succeed. And I’ll bet his backside feels so bad now that he’s sorry he tried. Now, let me serve you something a little better than mice, lice and old boots.’

  He took a pan from the little stove and filled three bowls with a rich, delicious soup he had bought at the Thule eating place.

  They relaxed in the cosy igloo and Hal murmured, ‘Home, Sweet Home.’

  Chapter 14

  Ghosts Get Angry

  Aram took them to see his parents.

  ‘They are very good people,’ he said, ‘but you mustn’t mind their old-fashioned ideas. They never went to school. They live in the farthest north where people have not changed their ways in a thousand years.’

  Hal and Roger went with him to the airport, where Aram kept a small plane. Boarding it, they flew past Thule and on to the shore of the polar sea. There was nothing between this land and the North Pole.

  Here, at the edge of the world, the igloos were better built. Farther south the art of igloo building was dying out since so many Eskimos now lived in stone and sod houses.

  Aram took them to a beautifully built igloo with a large window made of a sheet of transparent ice.

  The boys were warmly received by Aram’s father and mother. They did not speak English, but Aram translated everything they said.

  ‘An old man is happy that you have come to see him,’ said the father.

  Roger was puzzled. He asked Aram, ‘Who is the old man he speaks about?’

  ‘Himself,’ said Aram. ‘Eskimos are very modest.

  They think it is rude to say ‘I’ or ‘me’. So they speak as if they were talking about someone else.’

  The mother spoke and her voice was very low and sweet.

  ‘My mother,’ said Aram, ‘wants you to know that an old woman is surprised that you have come so far to see people who are not worth bothering about. And she asks if you would like some fresh blubber. Say yes.’

  Hal nodded and smiled. ‘Tell her that her visitors would be delighted to have some fresh blubber.’

  Roger objected. ‘Hey, what are you getting us into? Blubber is the fat that animals up here have under their skin to keep out the cold. Who wants to eat a chunk of stinking fat?’

  ‘You do, tough guy,’ said Hal. ‘Be polite, or we’ll kick you out. Smile and bow.’

  Roger smiled and bowed. He didn’t do it too well. He took the blubber and tried not to wrinkle his nose in disgust as he swallowed the greasy stuff as quickly as possible.

  Aram’s mother was delighted. She said gently, ‘An old woman who is no good would be proud to have a son like this one. He is half Eskimo already.’

  The father said, ‘An old man thinks you must be very happy to get away from your country where it is so hot and there is no snow for a sledge.’

  Roger wanted to say, ‘Baloney!’, but Hal replied, ‘Yes, in New York all summer we don’t have one bit of snow. And it’s so hot we have to turn on what we call ‘air conditioning’ to cool the house.’

  The old folks shook their heads sadly. Father said, ‘An old man thinks you were very lucky to come here. In your country you don’t even have the North Pole.’

  Hal said, ‘I’ve heard that the Eskimos never punish their children. How do you make them behave? Surely you spank them once in a while.’

  The old man turned to Aram. ‘Were you ever spanked?’

  ‘Never,’ said Aram. ‘Perhaps I should have been.’

  ‘No,’ said the old Eskimo. ‘Striking a child just puts an evil spirit into him. The air is full of evil spirits trying to get into us.’

  ‘He means ghosts,’ Aram smiled. ‘The Eskimos believe that everyone who dies becomes a ghost and tries to do mean things to the living. If anyone gets sick, it’s an evil ghost that is making him sick. So they think. There is no doctor up here —only the medicine man. He sells you all sorts of things that are supposed to keep off the ghosts. Perhaps they will show you some of them.’

  He spoke to his parents. At once they began to lay out all the things they had bought from the medicine man — they called him a shaman — and the boys were bewildered by the vast numbers of things that the shaman had insisted they must have to keep off bad ghosts.

  A seal’s eye to fend off the evil eye.

  A rabbit fur against frostbite.

  A bear’s claw to keep off the evil spirit called lightning.

  An ermine’s tail against the wild dance of devils in terrible storms.

  A caribou tooth to avoid starving. (‘Just what we needed when we had no food,’ said Hal.)

  The paw of a wolverine to keep you from going crazy.

  The head of a fox so no one could play tricks on you.

  The ear of a deer so you could hear well.

  The skin of a lemming against sickness.

  And many more.

  Surely the cloud of ghosts that were supposed to fill the igloo had no chance to do harm so long as they were held off by all these ghost-stoppers.

  No wonder the shaman got rich, selling these worthless objects to people who trusted him and believed everything he said.

  ‘Every month when the moon is great,’ said the old man, ‘the shaman goes up to see the man in the moon who will tell him what to do next.’

  The mother gathered up a large pan of food. She said, ‘An old woman will take this to our neighbour, who has nothing to eat.’ She went out, and came back presently with an empty pan.

  When had the boys from Long Island seen anyone take a good dinner to a neighbour?

  Never.

  No matter how ignorant these people were, their hearts were true and kind.

  They would not let the boys go without feeding them well. Meat was served to each of them. It was raw and it was rotten. And it smelled.

  The mother said, ‘We have been keeping it a long time. Now it is ripe and ready to eat. Some white people cook it. That spoils it. An old woman hopes you will like it.’

  Roger’s stomach almost threw up its blubber. The odour of the rotten meat made him want to hold his nose. His hand started to go up, but Hal caught it in time.

  ‘It won’t kill you,’ he said. ‘Eat it, and like it.’

  ‘I’ll bet you’re not going to eat yours.’

  ‘Watch me,’ said Hal.

  He put a gob of it in his mouth. His face took on an expression of utter agony. He sneezed, and his delicious meat sprayed out all over the caribou floor. The old woman at once cleaned it up, and put it back on Hal’s plate.

  Roger laughed until he thought he would burst.

  Hal began to apologize. ‘It’s nothing,’ said the mother, Aram interpreting. ‘You’re just not used to it. I did the same thing when someone gave
me cooked meat.’

  Hal and Roger downed the meat. It stayed down. They were very proud of themselves.

  A young man came in. He seemed very unhappy.

  ‘Something awful has happened. My wife had a baby.’

  ‘Is that awful?’ Aram’s mother said.

  ‘No. The awful thing is this —the baby has no teeth. It’s our first baby. Should we throw it away? How can it eat without teeth?’

  ‘Your wife will nurse it,’ said Aram’s mother.

  ‘But it would be bad for it to grow up without teeth. I think we will throw it into the sea. Perhaps the next baby we have will have teeth.’

  He was just going out when the old man called him back.

  ‘I don’t think you understand,’ he said. ‘Look at Aram. He had no teeth.’

  ‘No teeth? It’s strange that he is still alive. How does he get along without teeth?’

  ‘He has teeth now. Show him your teeth, son.’

  Aram bared his teeth.

  ‘How did he get them?’ said the worried young father. ‘Some people put caribou teeth in their mouth.’

  ‘Those didn’t come from any caribou. And he didn’t have them when he was born. But they grew up later.’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense. You’re just trying to comfort me. Our baby wasn’t born without hands. He wasn’t born without a nose, or without ears. He has legs, and ten toes. He’s all there-except teeth. That’s bad-and you can’t tell me it’s good. I think I’ll dump the brat.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ said Aram’s mother. ‘Just be patient. The teeth are there, but they haven’t come up yet. Give them time. It’s your wife you should be thinking about just now —not your baby. I will go and see if she is all right.’

  She looked at Hal and Roger. ‘I’m sorry. Perhaps you will come again.’ And she was gone.

  Chapter 15

  Flight to the North Pole

  Hal looked out through the ice window to-the polar sea.

  ‘Just think,’ he said, ‘the North Pole is right over there.’

  ‘I can’t see it,’ said Roger.

  ‘Neither can I. It’s seven hundred miles away. Peary spent years trying to get across that 700-mile stretch by dogteam. He didn’t get there until 1909. The first man to get to the North Pole.’

  ‘Now you can get there in two hours,’ said Aram.

  ‘You don’t mean it,’ Hal said. ‘No dogs could cover seven hundred miles in two hours. Besides, the sea is all broken up by drift ice. And there are wide lanes of water between the floes.’

  ‘Floes?’ said inquisitive Roger. ‘What are floes?’

  ‘You’re looking at them,’ said Hal. ‘Those pieces of floating ice are called floes.’

  Roger saw one that was as flat as a raft and about twelve feet wide. ‘Are they all like that?’

  ‘Some are smaller. Some are much larger. I’ve heard of a floe that was as big as the state of Connecticut.’

  ‘Gee!’ exclaimed Roger. ‘The North Pole right there and we can’t get to it.’

  ‘Yes you can,’ said Aram. ‘I’ll take you.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ said Hal.

  ‘No I’m not. Button up your caribou coat and come along. Next stop, North Pole.’

  He led them out to his plane. They climbed in, still doubting that Aram could do what he promised.

  Away they flew, over the floes and the open water between them, with no worry about dogs and sledges that had made the journey so difficult for Admiral Peary.

  Within two hours they came down on a great expanse of ice.

  ‘Meet the North Pole, gentlemen,’ said Aram.

  ‘But there’s nothing here,’ said Roger as he stepped down.

  ‘And there never will be,’ said Aram. ‘There is no land under this ice —nothing but water fourteen thousand feet deep. What you are standing on is just a great ice floe. And like all floes it drifts.’

  ‘But’, said Hal, ‘I understood that Peary planted a mast here with a flag to prove that he had reached the Pole.’

  ‘Right,’ said Aram. ‘But the floe where he planted his mast and flag floated away. And another floe came, and another, and another. Floes are always on the move. The wind blows them along, or a current carries them. I suppose thousands of floes have passed over the Pole during the seventy years since Peary was here.’

  ‘So there’s been nothing here since Peary’s time?’

  ‘Oh yes, other people have tried. They can’t get it through their heads that nothing will stay at the North Pole. The Russians put a weather observatory here. It drifted away. Another expedition brought ten tons of building material and put up a station. When they came back, it was gone.’

  ‘But there’s a station at the South Pole and it doesn’t float away,’ said Hal.

  ‘It can’t move,’ said Aram, ‘because there is land beneath. Here there’s just water.’

  ‘Anyhow,’ said Roger, ‘it’s great to be here on the very tip-top of everything. You just can’t go any farther north than this.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Aram, ‘this is the end of north. Nor is there any east or west here.’

  ‘How do you make that out?’

  ‘Well, just think a bit. There’s no direction here but south. It’s south to Greenland, isn’t it? And it’s south to Canada. It’s south to Alaska. It’s south to Norway. It’s south to Great Britain. And that brings you back to Greenland — we will go south to get there. Anywhere you turn, you are looking south.’

  A big plane roared overhead. It did not stop. ‘Where’s it going?’ Roger wondered.

  ‘It’s a Japanese plane,’ said Aram. ‘It’s going from Greenland to Japan. Our trading post buys a lot from Japan.’

  ‘But why does it fly over the North Pole?’

  ‘Because that’s the shortest way. The trip around the world to Japan would be twice as long.’

  ‘I can’t imagine that,’ said Hal. ‘I’ll have to look at a map.’

  ‘A map won’t help you,’ said Aram. ‘It’s flat. The earth is round, like a globe. Drop in at my school. We have a globe there. You can measure the distances—over the Pole, or around the earth.’

  ‘So there’s a lot of traffic over the Pole?’

  ‘Dozens of planes every day.’ Aram laughed. ‘It’s as busy as Times Square, or Fleet Street. And it’s not just the planes that go this way. Since the submarine Nautilus passed under the North Pole in 1958, many subs do the same every year. Since the water is more than two miles deep, there is plenty of room under the ice for a sub to go full speed without bumping into anything more than a fish or two.’

  ‘Or a whale or two,’ laughed Hal.

  ‘They don’t come this far north,’ said Aram.

  There was a crashing sound as their floe was struck by other floes, hurled against it by the waves.

  ‘I think we’d better get going,’ said Aram, ‘before this floe breaks up under us.’

  He flew them back to their igloo. The next day Hal visited Aram’s school and examined the globe. Aram was right. The shortest way to many lands was over the North Pole.

  No longer was it a place of mystery. Many explorers had given their lives in the struggle to reach it. Without any effort, thanks to Aram, the boys had stood where Peary had stood, on the top of the world.

  Chapter 16

  The Walrus Said

  ‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,

  ‘To talk of many things:

  Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —

  Of cabbages — and kings —

  And why the sea is boiling hot —

  And whether pigs have wings.’

  So Lewis Carroll wrote about the walrus.

  The Eskimos call it ‘the sea horse’.

  That makes two sea horses in the ocean. The walrus is one. The other is the little fellow two or three inches tall who always stands up on his hind feet and who has a head that looks exactly like the head of a horse.

  The Esk
imos also call the walrus ‘The Old Man of the Ice Floes’.

  And he does look like an old man as he sits on his floe, his tusks almost three feet long hanging straight down. At a distance, the white tusks look like a long white beard.

  John Hunt had asked his sons to capture a walrus. To do this it was necessary to use a kayak.

  ‘What’s a kayak?’ Roger asked his big brother.

  Big brother knew a lot, but he had never been in a sort of canoe,’ Hal said. ‘But it’s quite different from the canoes that we have used for hundreds of miles in our travels. It’s not made of wood like the canoe. There’s hardly any wood in north Greenland—so they use sealskin.’

  ‘What good is that? Couldn’t a walrus punch a hole in it with one of his tusks?’

  ‘You guessed it. That’s a risk we have to take. If that happens, I’ll meet you at the bottom of the sea.’

  They hired two kayaks. The owner told the boys how to use them. ‘A kayak takes one person only. You notice that all the top of it is covered except for one hole where you get in.’

  ‘It’s as good as a canoe,’ Roger said.

  ‘It’s a lot better than a canoe. If a canoe upsets, you drown unless you are a good swimmer. If a kayak upsets, you just flip it back up and you are not even wet.’

  ‘How come? How can you go upside down and not get wet?’

  ‘You wear this sealskin coat. No water can get through it. The hood is watertight. The collar fits tightly around your neck. The sleeves are tight-fitting. Best of all, the lower edge of the sealskin fits into this ring around the manhole so that not a drop gets into the kayak even if it is upside down.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ Hal admitted. ‘But if you are upside down, how do you get right side up again?’

  ‘You must hang on to your paddle. One stroke of the paddle, and up you come.’

  ‘Great,’ said Roger. ‘I can’t wait to try it.’

  Hal was anxious about what might happen to his eager brother.

  ‘Take it easy,’ he said. ‘Watch me. I’ll try to do it right and you copy me.’