Ilatsiak - 59 - The Boat

He looked around the bay that first evening, trying to locate himself in the vasteness of this land, seeking a spot to safely land the kayak. As he did, David found himself thinking thoughts of his far-away home. It had been a long time since he’d had thoughts like these. How this place was so different from those rocky heath-covered hills which surrounded Stromness where he had roamed as a child. How had he come to this place? It was so flat, so endless, so opposite in appearance from his homeland on the Orkney islands where it was so easy to place oneself between sea and hilltop. Here both the land and the sea stretched seemingly without change in every direction, waves ofwater or rock, it didn’t seem to matter so few places more predominant than the other. There were so few signs of man’s presence. Did he miss the signs of man’s habitation which led into the distant past, the stone monuments and dwellings? It was hard to say. It all seemed so long ago. How long ago was it, anyway? He could hardly remember how many winters had passed since he been in this place so far away, living with the Inuit. In this land all seemed empty. Only the occasional ring of stones hinted of an campsite. There were no permanent dwellings or monuments except for the few ‘inukshuit’ he had seen marking an occasional human presence.
He felt his heart grab hold and tighten in his chest, a lonely, gripping clutch. He let his eyes fill up with tears. They began to run down his face warm on his cheeks before they could drip off. His face in his hands, he sobbed alone into the endless land that stretched out before him. Overhead the drab, rain clouds drifted steadily eastward in the chilly, raw wind which had begun to blow from the north. It seemed the wind too wished to depart from this lonely place and head to the warmer south.
David’s mind suddenly plunged once again into the horrific scenes of his former comrads he had been running from. Screaming for the searing images in his head to end, he quickly landed the kayak on the sandy beach before him, carried it up above the beach. Not caring or thinking about it, he began to run towards a slight ridge behind the shoreline ahead. Such stupid ridges, so unridge-like, it was a mockery to call them that. Not like the bold ridges of home. These were nothing; only cruel, ungrateful killer ridges which offered no protection or shelter to any man. Then he tripped against a dark lump on the nearly bare mud and gravel ground and fell flat against it, his sealskin boots offering no traction on the slippery surface. Scrambling to his feet the lump took shape in the fading light. It was a man’s body. Who? What was a body doing here? David stared at the body or actually the loose collection of bones that seemed bundled within the dark clothing, wondering why he had been out here so far from any camp. He reached down and picked up a watch and then saw that it was on a chain around the man’s neck. A watch? Why did he have a watch? He dropped it into the mud. David ceased to care.
As he turned he realised for the first time he had been yelling and screaming. Was his illness back again, he wondered? Was it his shaman illness as he was beginning to call it? He stood and blankly stared back at the man lying there. The body was real. It was no spirit-creature. Looking around, he suddenly saw that one of the ridges he’s been comparing to that long ago home, was actually the hull of an overturned boat. So the man had come in one of the ship’s boats and died here. Why? David slowly approached the boat. Coming around the stern, he peered under the overturned hull. Several other bodies lay there, all dead and not much more than skeletons under some blankets. It looked like animals had broken some of the skeletons apart. Leg and arm bones seemed to have been pulled off and were scattered in a rough pile at the bow of the boat.
There was nothing left for him now but to keep on going. It was over, for some reason the expedition members were dying everywhere. Terrible things had happened both here and elsewhere. David wondered if Crozier and Asham had originally been with this group and had somehow managed to get away and live. It certainly looked possible. After all the boat would have easily accommodated a couple more people and there seemed to be lots of supplies, although none of it was food. Crozier had been very evasive when David had asked how he and Asham had come to the Fish River area and he was even quieter about how and where they had made it through the past winter.