Never Say Die (3 page)

Why, I wondered, was my brother getting in touch now, when he never had before, back when I was always hoping he would? I used to imagine he would take me on his raft through the Grand Canyon. Maybe that's what the letter was about, now that I was old enough to do something like that.

I couldn't resist opening it before going to bed. Big mistake. Between my brother and that awful bear, I ended up tossing and turning all night. Soon as I got up next morning I picked up the letter and reread it. Here's what it said:

Sincerely,
Your brother Ryan

S
chool wasn't my first priority after breakfast. I headed downriver with Wayne Tetlichi, head of our Hunters and Trappers Committee, to fetch my rifle. Wayne had a camera along in hopes the bizarre bear had left prints. He was also hoping we could find scat or hair.

Wayne was Gwich'in Indian, in his forties, lean and smart as a whip. I had hunted with him a couple of times. As a tracker he had no equal. I eased back on the throttle as we approached the spot. Wayne reached for his rifle just in case the monster was still hanging around.

We went ashore, cautious as could be. Real quick, Wayne came across a set of quality tracks in the mud. “Big 'un,” Wayne said, as he handed the rifle off to me and began to take pictures of the longer footprints from the back feet and the shorter footprints from the front feet.

I could see for myself that the tracks indicated polar bear, from their size and shape and the short claws on the front feet. Grizzlies use their long claws for digging up rodents. Polar bears don't need those; they swat seals. These tracks even showed hair on the soles of the feet, another indication of polar bear.

Wayne didn't say anything, but I could pretty well guess that he was wondering if my imagination had gotten away from me. It wasn't as rare as it used to be for a polar bear to show up fifty miles south of the Arctic Ocean. Hunger and desperation had driven one nearly five hundred miles south, down toward the Great Slave Lake.

We went looking for my rifle and found it in the bushes. The bear had sent it flying about twenty feet through the air. Wayne tracked my bear a mile onto the open tundra in hopes it had left some scat. It hadn't, but when we returned to the river and discovered my shredded game bags, Wayne found strands of hair on them. To my relief, the hair was distinctly brown. “Like a grizzly's,” Wayne said with a nod in my direction. “You said the head and neck fur was brown. Makes sense, the hair on these bags would be from the head or neck—probably face.”

Wayne put on the latex gloves he had brought along. With the hairs zipped inside a kitchen bag, he said, “I'll get this to Roger McKeon. He'll have it tested. If this bear is something new and dangerous, people need to know.”

Roger McKeon is Canada's big expert on polar bears. People up here respect Roger McKeon for what he knows but don't feel right about the way he gets that knowledge. Harassing polar bears from helicopters, shooting them from the air with tranquilizer darts so you can put a satellite collar on them and track their every movement—that isn't right. As Jonah would say, “You never mess around with wildlife.”

I heard Roger McKeon talk about polar bears only six weeks before, when he came to Aklavik to meet with the high school kids. He told us he'd been collaring polar bears in the Canadian Arctic almost thirty years, and they were getting harder and harder to find even by helicopter on account of the vanishing ice. He told us that more and more polar bears are turning up drowned, especially after storms, which used to be unheard of.

“Here's how bad it's getting,” McKeon told us. “Last summer, a polar bear swam nine days and four hundred and twenty-six miles across the Beaufort Sea in a desperate search for ice to haul out on. We knew
Ursus maritimus
could swim two hundred miles … four hundred is phenomenal. In freezing seawater, it must have taken every last ounce of her strength. Unfortunately, her two-year-old cub drowned along the way.”

With a shrug and a grimace, McKeon said, “Polar bears can't survive without their platforms of ice, my friends. Neither will their prey, the ringed seal. Without doubt, the planet is warming, and the climate is changing almost everywhere. Where it's changing the fastest is in the Arctic. In your lifetimes, the polar bear will probably go extinct in the wild. Think about that when you choose to take Aklavik's quota. That's all I'm asking. The choice will be yours.”

McKeon left the gym with a scattering of applause, mostly from the teachers. The rest of us didn't know how to react. If there's one thing the people of the Arctic don't like, it's people from the south telling us “the right thing to do.” Polar bears have been part of our diet since forever.

Back in town, Wayne headed for the post office and I headed for school. With testing behind us and only a few weeks to go, we were having a lot of assemblies. I walked into the middle of one about employment in the mining industry. I can't say I paid good attention to the people from the Diavik Diamond Mine or the pictures they were showing. I had two years before I graduated high school. I wasn't excited about working hundreds of miles from home in a giant pit, or on an offshore oil platform when the government gave the green light to the oil companies to go after their discoveries under the Beaufort Sea.

Mostly I wasn't paying attention because my mind was on that letter from my half brother. It was exciting to hear from him, but at the same time I was resentful that he had waited this long, like I didn't exist. At the end of the letter, when he said he wanted to find out what I thought about climate change and the decline of the caribou, it seemed like a clue that his invitation was more about his article than it was about me.

This line of thinking had me disappointed with myself for being so small-minded. Ryan had said it was a chance for us to get to know each other. And the offer he was making was generous and incredible, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. As I first read the letter, the name of the river he was going to run really jumped out at me. Jonah had been telling me about the Firth River since I was a little kid. “A hunter's paradise,” my grandfather called it. He hadn't been back since he was a young man, but whenever he told stories about it, his memories were keen as yesterday.

The assembly was coming to a close and so was the back-and-forth in my head. Here's what I knew for sure: even if I wanted to go on the trip, there was no way I would do it, not while Jonah was dying. I needed to stay and be with him, and say good-bye when the time came.

A couple of days went by with me not answering the letter. It wasn't like I had to do it right away.

Meanwhile, Aklavik was on alert for “Nick Thrasher's bear,” as it was being called. At school, having to tell my story over and over again was getting old fast. Hearing “Nick's bear” made my skin crawl. People from Aklavik are not out to get attention. The hunters who have the most to brag about never do.

I got an email from my mother. She asked what was up with the letter from my brother. Aunt Becky mentioned to her that I had gotten it but hadn't wanted to talk about it. Which was true. All I said was, it's something I need to think about, and please don't say anything about it to the grandparents. I wanted to spare Jonah from having to think about what I should do about my brother and his invitation.

By the time of my mom's email I was ready to bounce the letter off her. Rather than give her a secondhand version of what my brother had written, I faxed her the letter from the clinic with Aunt Becky's help. While I was at it, I gave my aunt the short version of what was going on.

Soon as I faxed the letter to Yellowknife, I emailed my mother that there was no way I would go on my brother's river trip on account of Jonah.

She emailed back after she'd read the letter and my email.
I understand you wanting to stay with Jonah, but he might pass away sooner rather than later. Your brother sounds like a real expert in the outdoors, like his (your) father was. If you really want to go on the trip and have that time with him, you might think about just telling him where you stand. If it works for him to wait until he gets to Inuvik to find out if you're coming, the two of you could start talking about what the trip would be like. You could find out if it was a good fit for you
.

Thanks, Mom
, I wrote back.
That's really good advice
.

A few minutes later I sent my first email to Ryan. I was really cautious about his invitation. I didn't want to act excited, even though I was. All I said was, I'm interested but can't be definite, and then I explained why.

Ryan emailed back that he was happy to be in contact with me, and he completely understood. He thought it was great that I was so close with my grandfather. He would just proceed as if I was coming, right up to when it came time to shop for groceries in Inuvik.

My mom thought Ryan's reply was pretty classy. It showed he really wanted to get to know me and have me along.

The famous photographer sent me a checklist of the clothing he was bringing along, for me to make use of if that was helpful. He said he had rafted a river in Canada's central Arctic the summer before and knew we had to be prepared for ninety-degrees Fahrenheit and also for cold rain and snow. Any clothes I didn't have already that I might like to take along, he would be happy to buy for me in Inuvik before we flew out for the trip.

I told him I didn't have one of those bug shirts with the see-through mosquito netting in the front of the hood.
Good, I'll get you one
, Ryan wrote back.
As I found out last summer, the bugs on the tundra can get really bad
.

We were getting along pretty well on the email. The chances of me going on this trip were slim, but it felt good to be in touch with my half brother.

At school, the talk about “Nick's bear” was starting to die down. With only ten days left before we were out for the summer, there was a lot going on. I went back to living under the radar.