Nunani: Fox day, wolf night

RACHEL QITSUALIK

I was on the phone, chatting with an English friend living in Ontario. I was telling her that I was sick of people complaining about the winter darkness.

It wasn’t bothering me. I had missed the North, since work had necessitated some years in the South, and the darkness just seemed like a comforting reminder that I was back home (mind you, I later became sick of it and am now glad that the days are lengthening).
Anyway, in telling my friend about the short days, I noted her odd response.

“Oh, they’re short here too, dear.”

She didn’t know much about the Arctic, and I kept trying to get across to her that Arctic days were really short.

“No, you don’t get it,” I said. “By six o’clock, it’s pitch black. It’s like blackest night in Ontario, like one in the morning.”

“Oh,” she chuckled, “nobody likes winter. It’s always hard on my arthritis.”
She was old. Maybe, I reasoned, she was just being intractable, set in her ways. I decided to keep trying.

“No, you’re not listening,” I said. “It’s an Arctic thing.”

“Now, dear,” she again chuckled, “remember that winter is always a bit darker. You know, the sun is going down as early as 5:30 now.”

“That’s my point,” I said. “It’s going down at 5:30 where you are. It’s going down at 2:30 here.”

“Oh, stop exaggerating, dear. I can see by the clock when the sun goes down. We’re all on one world, aren’t we? The sun doesn’t stay up at different times.”

“Well, yes it does,” I argued. “Think of time zones. They denote where the sun appears to a population at a certain point in the Earth’s rotation. So the sun is going up and down at different times, relativistically.”

“Yes,” she said stiffly. “But there are only so many time zones, aren’t there? And they still work up there, same as down here, or you wouldn’t be able to phone me, true?”

“Yeah, but…”

The whole thing was reminding me of an Inuit etiological myth. Once, before many of the things we know today, there existed a couple of friends: a wolf and a fox. In those times, darkness reigned. All creatures hunted by lamplight. Animals had power, being able to transform themselves in order to use tools.

But, even so, some were getting sick of the darkness. One of these was the fox, who one day told the wolf that someone should will the world to be light all the time. The wolf, however, preferred to hunt in the dark, insisting that a world full of light would be annoying. So the two fell into bitter quarreling. As they did so, their powers manifested. The world grew alternately light and dark, sun and shadow circling each other menacingly.

But in the end, the fox was somewhat weaker than the wolf. Their friendship damaged beyond repair, the two went their separate ways, and now the night and the day circle each other forever more, with the darkness being somewhat more prevalent than the light.

It is interesting that night and day, darkness and light, warmth and cold, are often associated with argumentation. Two things that people never get sick of arguing about are light and temperature levels. To my amazement, I found that even Pacific Northwest Coast peoples have a day-night myth identical to the Inuit one. Wasps and bears take the place of fox and wolf, and they argue with song.

It seems that the animals in such stories almost certainly represent conflicting human opinions that just won’t quit, an ancient acknowledgment that people get in arguments over the oddest things. And as with our mythical animals, arguments between humans may have far-reaching consequences, especially when both parties become entrenched.

So what did I do about my friend who refused to admit that the daylight exhibits unique Arctic behaviour? I changed the subject. After all, I do not want us to become the fox and wolf. But perhaps this was always the point of the myth. Rather than serving to explain night and day, maybe it was really meant as a cautionary tale against needless conflict. One way or another, sometimes it is best to leave a friend to exist peacefully in their world, while remaining at peace within our own.

Pijariiqpunga.