Four Quarters of Light (26 page)

With my tent erected, I had declared my intention to stay. As I knocked in the last peg a voice behind me called, ‘Come, you
must eat with us.' I turned to see a family wave to me as they passed on their way to the ‘potluck', an informal gathering and sharing of food and gifts, and my heart lifted. Sometimes we really don't know what we are hungry for! Far out in this isolated wasteland, company was more important to me than the grumbling of my stomach.

At the communal supper of moose, caribou meat, chicken, beans, corn and salad, I realized I was not the only stranger here. Some photographers on assignment for
National Geographic
introduced themselves, along with some people from an Australian TV crew who wanted to get some shots of the Gathering before moving on to film the caribou migration. I immediately took advantage of the situation and stated that I would love to tag along, if that was okay with them. ‘No problems, mate. As long as you can get yourself back it's okay with us. You might even be able to give us a line or two for the commentary.'

That evening as I was walking through the spread-out hamlet I found it hard to work up the energy or the enthusiasm for the days ahead. The village comprised approximately two dozen chipboard cabins strung out over a few acres. They were shoddy and unkempt and had little in the way of personal adornment. They looked more like shelters than homes. I kept reminding myself that I was living in a subsistence community and that was precisely what these structures were. A shelter in which one lived might translate in the developed world as home, but to these people ‘home' was the shared community in which they lived. The home place was primarily the experience of tribal belonging. The honour and shared experience of being a tribal member was deep-rooted, psychologically and spiritually, with these people. And this belief in shared belonging was not exclusive to the tribe: it expanded itself out into the natural world. Every rock, plant, animal, fish and bird was a respected part of this shared home world. A part of me was deeply attracted to this philosophy. It was not romantic attraction, it had more to do with the inherent sense of well-being and harmony that such a life experience must impart.

But these people were on the very edge of survival. The issues were enormous. How could fewer than one hundred people in the Arctic outback take on the global problems of human rights, climate change and alternative energy proposals, and at the same time take on an oil industry which would create wars to have its way. It was a David and Goliath stand-off, and the Gwich'in had hardly a shot in their sling. Even if they were morally, ethically, culturally and spiritually superior to the enemy, that enemy could still crush them out of existence under the weight of its powerful lobby.

But who were these people who stood like the Spartans at the pass of Thermopylae attempting to hold back the voracious forces of global capitalism?

I resolved that as I was here among the Gwich'in I should let them speak for themselves.

My second day in the Arctic Village began after a most uncomfortable night. It had rained heavily and my two-dollar tent was obviously not made for Arctic extremes. Although I had picked the highest piece of ground it was still tundra, and tundra is synonymous with boggy conditions. The unevenness of the earth and the accumulating wetness underneath me had made my first night in the wilderness seem more like a night on the ocean. By morning my groundsheet had several puddles in it and my sleeping bag felt as if it had just been washed in from the Beaufort Sea. I was tired and soaked to the skin, and I resolved to get myself dried out before another downpour washed me out completely.

My efforts to dry my equipment revealed me as a complete greenhorn. First I dried out my tent and left the entrance flaps wide open to allow the bright morning sun to complete the task. Then I draped my saturated sleeping bag on the pile of caribou horns behind me, and changed out of my wet clothes and hung them over the dwarf alder and birch bushes around me. For the first time I noticed a few other tents pitched some thirty or forty yards from mine on much lower ground. They were well-made
tents suited to the harsh conditions, but I was puzzled as to why their occupants had chosen to shun the area of high ground I was camped on.

There was no possibility of my coping with another rough night in my tent. The walls at each side had collapsed under the force of the rain. In any case, I had not sufficient metal pins to stretch the canvas enough to hold the walls taut and ensure the water kept running off instead of through the material. The waterproofing had long since vanished from the material. The tent was really a children's back-garden plaything, and here was Grizzly Adams Keenan trying to fend off the forces of the Arctic in it. As I struggled with my predicament I noticed some people pointing at my ridiculous efforts and making whispered remarks. I thought they might be laughing at my antics, but their faces were not laughing. They displayed something between sympathy and scorn.

I remembered from my walk around the village having seen some unwanted heavy blue plastic sheeting. I assumed that the prefabricated plywood boards the cabins were constructed from had been delivered encased in this material. I asked myself why the villagers had not used it as additional waterproofing for their homes. Whatever the reason, I was happy they had no use for it. I certainly did. Also, not far from the community hall I had discovered the shell of what had been an old caravan,
circa
1950. The interior fittings had been gutted and the rear wall was hanging from it, but the inside was full of polystyrene sheeting. I suspected it was left over from some building project and had been lying exposed for some considerable time. My needs were great and urgent. I was living among a community that existed by and upheld the tradition of subsistence, so I was convinced they would not mind me taking one of the sheets.

Within less than an hour the breeze and increasing heat had dried my tent and I spread the plastic sheeting across it. I cut the polystyrene to the exact length and height of the tent walls and inserted them alongside the inner walls. The rest of the sheet I cut into a large triangle which I propped against the rear section
of the tent. With the plastic outer skin weighted down with boulders, I stood back and admired my inventive handiwork. I was sure I had redeemed myself, in some measure, in the eyes of my hosts. But the response to my efforts by some of the villagers was not what I was expecting. Some simply stared at my improvised home, others whispered in their native tongue, but no-one showed any signs of admiration or approval. Anyway, it was finished and it would be dry for the remainder of my stay, so I walked off and headed for the long community hall where the events of the Gathering were to take place.

The building was approximately sixty-five feet by thirty and was constructed of pine logs, which I suppose had been barged in on the Yukon River. Inside, the walls were lined with villagers of all ages. Their rounded features and skin colour were an ethnic mixture of pale Siberian Asian and the deep copper and aquiline features of the Plains Indian. But there were other faces that were neither Asian nor Indian. I looked briefly at the leaflet outlining the day's speakers. Names such as Shawn Martinez, Mabeleen Christian, Princess Peter-Raboff and Kimberly Carlo hinted at bloodlines other than Athabascan. Even the young chief, Evon Peter, sported looks that were more Mediterranean than native Alaskan, and his name sounded as if it might have Scandinavian roots.

I casually read over my programme again, learning first that ‘Arctic Village' was the white man's name for the place; at all times the village was addressed by its Athabascan name, Vashraii K'oo. The principal part of the day was to be taken up by ceremonial dances and song. After songs of prayer and dedication there were to be four welcome dances celebrating the caribou and the raven, and at the end of these there would be an invitation dance in which everyone was expected to join to become one with the herd. The dances were given Athabascan names which I could neither spell nor repeat. Above the names of the dances, printed in bold capital letters, was the warning ‘NO CAMERA OR VIDEO OR RECORDING PERMITTED'. Obviously the Gwich'in were determined that their culture was not to become a sideshow.

The ceremonies were not to begin until everyone had arrived, so I walked outside to mingle. A group of young men were chatting and smoking near me, gathered around a large ghettoblaster radio, listening to rock music. They were dressed in baseball caps, T-shirts and training shoes and they spoke American English with the slow, pronounced rhythm of the native. But their talk was not about tribal politics, it was about cars and TV programmes, or about some action movie and who had what video to exchange. Young girls moved in and out of the group with ease, and with equal ease roared about the village on quad motorbikes.

Gradually their numbers depleted, and I was sure the festivities were about to begin. A few of the Australian crew arrived and introduced me to some members of a TV crew from Washington, French photographers and some people from Germany and Sweden. If this kept up the international contingent would outnumber the natives. Most of the non-natives were media people, so I remained outside while they went in. All of them intended to observe the prohibition about cameras, but I didn't want to be seen as another TV person.

After a few minutes I made my way inside. Not much had changed. The tribe were ranged out around the room on plastic chairs or benches. It could have been a village get-together anywhere. The village elders were already making speeches of welcome, reiterating tribal values and giving personal testimony of their own life in the village. The speeches were innocent, and perhaps because of this were irresistibly moving.

One particular white man stood out among the rest. He was obviously not a media person. Underneath a shabby corduroy coat with leather elbow patches he wore a purple shirt and clerical collar. He had a heavy beard and wore his hair in a long ponytail. Across his chest he wore several rows of beads. His wellworn jeans were filthy and tucked into a pair of plain cowboy boots. Beside him stood the local Indian priest, who had been speaking as I entered. There was nothing remotely clerical about him. He had at one time been a Gwich'in chief and was still the
local fiddle player, but somewhere along the line he had become ordained as an Episcopal priest. The man standing beside him, I learned later, was the Bishop of Alaska.

Soon the speechmaking came to an end. Evon Peter, the handsome young chief, walked to the head of the room and informed us all that the dances were about to begin. He reminded us that these dances were sacred to his people and asked those who had come to ‘share' with the Gwich'in to respect this and refrain from taking photos. ‘Any of these dances you take home with you should be taken home in your heart, that you may remember us and the caribou from which we first came. There will be other dances during the time we spend together that you may photograph.'

Even as he was explaining, dozens of tribespeople poured in through the doors. Men and women young and old, children and babies, all wearing yellow and brown buckskins decorated with the most elaborate beadwork. It was as if someone had opened a great chest full of giant butterflies. The atmosphere in the room instantly changed from one of serious intent to intense excitement as the dancers milled about in disarray. Then, from somewhere, a slow, rhythmic drumbeat began, and from different parts of the room a native chant started up. I was sure this was not by any prearranged design; the villagers were engaging in spontaneous prayer and worship. It was, I suppose, the equivalent of Christian plainsong, but this was much older and more primitive. It didn't move me in the heart as a plainsong did. It unleashed itself and resonated into the pit of my stomach.

Soon, again with unorganized spontaneity, the dancers began to wheel about the centre of the hall. There was no distinction between sexes or ages. The dancers became one amorphous whole, wheeling slowly and releasing instinctive guttural chants. The hypnotic drumbeat tightened about them as native rattles set up an eerie free-form accompaniment. As the circle of bodies moved, their shuffling feet added a kind of
basso profondo
note to the primitive tempo. The chanting cries of the dancers had the
effect of coming not from individual voices but from the lumbering ruck of the caribou people. As the movement became more intense it produced an unnerving trance-like effect in the onlookers. Everyone stood in awed silence as the four ritual dances moved one into the other. Then, as if the pull of the circle was too much to resist, the people sitting and watching outside the circle were pulled into it. They became one with the dancers, one with the animal energy of the herd.

I, too, felt the irresistible pull of it. Only the fact that this was a sacred moment and that I was an outsider kept me from falling into the vortex. The coloured beadwork set against the soft browns and yellows of the hide costumes was like looking down a kaleidoscope. The unending patterns, endlessly fascinating, had their own kind of power. It was like some wondrous flower rapturously opening.