In the Shadow of the Fjord

The only dwelling emitting the slightest hint of life was painted hunter green. A lantern burned within, which in the predawn light cast a warm orange glow on the home’s only windowpane. Our crew of six stood on the margins of this Arctic settlement, eager to make progress North, and so we had disembarked our anchored expedition vessel long before dawn.

A man carrying an armload of firewood rounded the home’s corner.

“Good morning, sir," our Captain said addressing him. "English?”

The man dropped the firewood near the foundation and tilted his head.

Our Captain took a deep breath. “I am Roman Racklity, and we—” he said circling our group with a crooked finger, “are looking—” he cupped his hands and held them up to either side of his eyes, “for a guide.”

“Guy-ed?” the man replied.

“Yes sir, a guide,” Racklity reiterated. “To find whales. Narwhals to be precise.”

The man did not so much as blink at this but instead produced a long white smoking pipe from within his parka pocket. He struck a match and lit the bowl. Labored puffs sent clouds of smoke adrift, and only after the puffs rose high above the corrugated metal roofing did the man’s eyes float from the bowl of his pipe and settle again on Racklity.

“You know, whales?” Racklity stated and pressed his hands together to make a swimming motion in front of his body, further confusing our new acquaintance. “Come on, everyone, help me out.”

Our crew jumped into action. I realized I’d never seen any of them pantomime anything before this moment, despite playing several types of board games to pass the time on the voyage North. The first mate glued his arms to his sides and flailed his legs with a kicking motion. Several others followed suit until four grown adults floundered around in a circle, which from a distance might have looked like some crude imitation of a tribal dance. The ship’s steward, Lex, mimicked a whale’s breach and almost fully committed to the ground before catching himself mid plunge. I mimicked a blowhole by exploding my hand and fingers at the back of my neck. This gesture, I realized slightly too late, could just have easily been interpreted as me losing my mind altogether.

All the while, the man watched us with a captivated curiosity, one that made him forget his pipe entirely as a thread of smoke streamed upward, wrapping his neck and chin. Several sled dogs, who slept on the hillside adjacent, were awoken by our commotion and now barked their approvals—their eyes glistening in the dim light.

We were losing him, if not confusing him completely, and the crew were quickly losing their endurance, panting in the predawn dust. Not willing to waste our effort, I walked over to the man and grasped his long pipe, which he relinquished without peeling his attention from the scene. I held the pipe to my nose like a narwhal and swam a thread through our crew. As if a match was struck in his mind, a look of supreme understanding eclipsed the man's face. “Ah, Tuugaalik,” he stated plainly.

It had worked. We didn’t speak his language, but the way he said the word with such conviction suggested our intentions were understood. My crew mates, some of them now hunched with hands on their knees, breathed an air of relief.

To others, my role in our little charade would probably seem trivial, but this was one of the most monumental moments of my entire life. Maybe I gave the clue that sparked the match, but more than likely it was a combination of our efforts. My team. My crew. Our effort. For the first time, I had been part of something larger than myself. The fact that we succeeded was a bonus. But it was something I strived for since joining this expedition six months ago—the comradery, bonding, working toward a common goal—because for once, I wanted to be part of something that wasn’t just me for a change. I had been going solo through life, but I realized I would never truly know myself this way. I needed teammates to help me understand myself, and here they were, my teammates, keeled over and panting in the pure Arctic air.

“Tuugaalik,” the man said again, then reclaiming his pipe he waved us inside.

A slender, thirtyish woman with black hair, moved in silent, serious footsteps in the kitchen, which was nothing more than an extension of the living room. She shut the refrigerator door and faced us. This woman wasn’t going to mince words. The two exchanged a few sentences in their language.

“My brother tells me you’re looking for Narwhal,” she said matter-of-factly. “You should return in Winter when they are further South.”

Everyone looked at each other with the same confused expression: a dusting of snow on the ground outside, the ten-story-high icebergs floating in the bay, and the biting wind all made us forget it was only September.

“We’d like to find them sooner rather than later,” Racklity said. “We’ve come a long way.”

“My name is Lusa,” she said. “I can take you to them, but it will not be easy.” She peered out the window at the dog team that was now enthusiastically yelping. Lusa gestured toward a central table, and gathering chairs from around the room, our crew sat and watched with rapt attention as she unfolded a map of the local area.

The man returned and placed a pale length of fermented meat on the map and shaved a few slivers with a hunting knife. Lex shoved one in his mouth and gagged.

“Thank you, Anik,” Lusa said. “We should go to Ummannaq Island.” She pointed to a small island a hundred miles north of our current position.

“Ummannaq?” Lex repeated. “What’s what mean?”

“Heart-shaped. Narwhals stay near the heart until winter.”

We chewed on this interpretation as we studied the map. If anything, the small island looked like a dog’s cocked head, but as outsiders, who were we to question the moniker?

Anik again materialized from the back room carrying a bottle of homebrew. The sound of a cork resounded off the walls, and then he walked around the room encouraging each of us to nose his product of clear liquid. A quick sniff revealed this might be the same liquid used to preserve specimens in jars.

Anik tilted his head back, then all of his short, stocky frame released a warm belly-laugh. Anik, we were learning, found amusement in our struggles. He placed eight shot glasses on the map, filled them, then expecting us to follow suit, held his glass forward to cheers. We did, and Lusa was the first to down hers without the slightest display of discomfort.

My throat and chest on the other hand, burned fiercely, and I thought I might finally understand what the inside of a wood-burning stove might feel like.

Lusa didn’t break stride. “Be warned, only those with the purest of hearts can get close enough to a narwhal this time of year,” she said, and her bold brown eyes settled on me like she could sense something within. Inuit—it was becoming clear—had a sixth sense for interpreting the humans occupying tight spaces around them. They recognize true intention, the core of what a human wants in any given situation, and in that small dwelling, it was the purest gift I had ever witnessed. What I had been hiding behind a heavy curtain my whole life, Lusa had reached behind in minutes and was now dissecting on the table in front of the crew. What she saw, I did not know. Maybe she could sense I did not belong. I was an outsider to everyone. A misfit. My only hope was that if she saw cowardice, she wouldn’t reveal it to the crew. I promise, Lusa, I wanted to say, I have a pure heart.

She smiled and broke the eye contact first, then went on to detail the route we’d take North, our packs and provisions, the dogs and sleds we’d use, and the gear required. We stood and shook hands. Our journey started tomorrow.

People were moving around town now. Dressed in parkas and fur-lined mittens, they waddled along small paths cut into the snow-dusted hillsides. Out in the bay, large ice chunks floated like oversized puzzle pieces looking for their places. Walls of granite towered above us, and though we could see the sun casting corduroy rays over the brim, we were still in the cool shadow of the fjord.

I stood there, in the shade, reveling at how far I’d come over the past hour, replaying the whale scene repeatedly in my mind. My crew members gathered their belongings, their dry packs, and synthetic jackets, and none of them had even the slightest clue I had the most monumental moment of my life. To them, I was just another member of the crew. And that was precisely the point.