Ice Whale (13 page)
Authors: Jean Craighead George
swam down toward the brittlestar-dotted
ocean floor. The girl in the skin boat had cut him almost free, but the line was still entangled around his fluke. He swam to the underside of a large ice floe.
Once thereâ he stopped. He found a natural crack and hung in itâ breathing heavily. Arctic codâ small fish with brown backs and purplish sidesâ darted past him. A seal slid into the water from the floe. She caught a cod then climbed back up to the floe.
Siku thrashed his flukes. The rope still held. He swam around and around the underwater bottom of the ice floe. The rope grew tight. He needed one more pull when he heard a voice.
“A paddle! Hand me a paddle!” It was the girl. She had fallen out of the skin boat onto the ice when she had leaned out to cut him free. Getting quickly to her feetâ she tried to reach for the paddle just as an ice block broke off from the large floe. Swiftly it was carried farther out to sea with her on it.
“A line!” she screamed. “Throw me a line.” Benny paddled hardâ but the current was too swift. Ice floes were thick around the
umiaq
. There was nothing he could do in such dangerous waters and powerful currents.
Emily Toozak was carried farther down the coast to the east.
“Benny! Oliver! Help!”
Siku hung in his air pocket under Emily Toozak's ice floe. He kept working the muscles that power his flukes and at last the rope fell away. The ice moved with him. He suffered burns from the rope. Stillâ he did not leave.
Sikuâ underneath the terrified girlâ guided the huge floe east toward Smith Bay. He sighed at the underwater smell of it. Each fall he had fed on the abundant plankton near there. The girl with the kind eyes spoke out loud.
“I tried to take the rope off youâ Siku. Now I am lost.”
.” a whale shrilledâ calling him to the Eastern Beaufort Sea.
Siku did not answer.
W
ord was radioed all over town that Emily
Toozak had been lost on an ice floe. Almost immediately four members of the Sea and Land Rescue Team got back into Benny's
umiaq
and paddled to the east after Emily. The paddlers were volunteers in the dangerous work of rescuing people in this unforgiving land. They were strong and adventurous young men and women.
Benny took his seat in the stern and called out a fast paddling stroke. The crew caught the rhythm and the boat sped forward. By the time they reached the ice from which Emily Toozak's floe had broken offâ she was nowhere to be seen. The currents split here and Benny could not tell which way her floe had gone. Had they taken her north into the pack ice or east toward Canada?
He decided he needed more than this boat to determine which direction the currents had taken her. He returned to the trading postâ hopped onto his snow machineâ and sped to the Arctic Research Lab for help. Some of the rescue team came with him.
It took valuable time for him to explain that Emily Toozak was lost at sea and that a boat with a stronger motor than his was needed. It took another fifteen minutes to ready a power boat for the water. Once they were afloatâ Bennyâ the rescue volunteersâ and the navy men motored out beyond the point then east. Emily Toozak was nowhere to be found. The naval officer in charge said she might be dead. He motored back to the Arctic Research Lab while rescue workers continued to hunt. Someone from the lab had contacted Wayne Airlinesâ and their planes were now flying overhead.
But Benny knew Emily Toozak was still alive and that he would find her. This time he took his kayak. He would search the eastward-flowing current and the coves and river deltas along its way. He paddled alone.
The freight airplanes passed overheadâ and a search helicopter circled. A modern ship passed him carrying supplies for the oil fields. Its crewmen had been alerted to watch for a girl on an ice floe. They lined the deckâ and several waved at Benny. He did not wave back.
“I wouldn't be so worriedâ” Benny said to the Arctic world of iceâ cloudsâ windâ and green waterâ “if only Emily Toozak had been raised in the traditional Eskimo ways. Then she would know how to survive. Her generation isn't as skilled in Eskimo wisdom.” Benny was one of the only ones of his generation left who knew how to survive in the wilderness with little but a knife.
Common eiders were still flying in flocks headed east toward the shoreline in order to obtain the driftwoodâ grassesâ and reeds they needed to build nests and raise their young. Terns circled overhead and flew toward the gravel beaches where they make their nests. The birds saidâ “Summer is here.” But there were no bird clues to say where the current had taken Emily Toozak.
As he paddled Benny felt that there was something about this girl and Siku. Bothâ he knew instinctivelyâ were alive. Emily Toozak's ice floe had grounded somewhere. Sikuâ Benny assumedâ was unharmed and had gone on to the Eastern Beaufort Sea.
Thinking the current might have carried her to Cape Simpsonâ he paddled toward it. He was gone three days. His food was sun-dried caribou and fish. He carried freshwater.
The sea was calm and he could paddle steadily. At last he saw bits of mosses and sticks floating on the water. They told him he was approaching the cape.
A fish surfaced nearby. He did not stop to catch it but paddled on. Others might have used an outboard or powerboatâ but Benny was from the old school and preferred to travel on his own power.
At the capeâ he stopped. The cape was still blocked with ice that swirled and tumbled; it was still early summer and thousand of ice floes freckled the sea.
Away from the large floesâ Benny rested. The sun sank slightly toward the horizon and then rose. The long two-month day was upon this world. He watched the sky and ocean turn bright green then yellow gold. He sat still in admirationâ but knew he had to paddle the long way back to Barrow.
Robert Toozak and Flossie were at the trading post waiting for him. They walked slowly down the beach when he arrivedâ afraid to hear the news. Benny stepped out of his kayak shaking his head.
