She paddles and streams her kayak up Kobuck River. At daybreak, she passes the salt flats into the glass water; she skims for cod and chum, hand over oar, hand over oar, ripples tightening the drawstring on her parka. A taffeta of cold air hits her cheeks; they are sun- wind chapped, a sign of Inupiaq women subsisting for their young families. In body, in Inuit, she thrives on the bleakest ecstatic love. Here on her knees, in her seal skin buoyant boat, her duties of her village complete, she knows her place among the caribou women. She knows her children with their earphones on, while playing video games, will not follow her in the knowledge of ice, dressing a caribou, preparing dry-fish, jarring jellies, dip netting hooligans, purse netting whitefish, tracking and setting traps for marmot, squirrels, arctic fox and wolverines. She thinks of the children, hand over oar; they will stay at the village, carve for cleaving water with Inupiat hands.
|