The Screaming Seagull: Part Two — An Unfair Advantage

RACHEL ATTITUQ QITSUALIK

The dog team somehow knew that I had been left in charge. They formed the last link in a chain of watching. They watched me, while I watched a seagull noisily calling and swooping at my father, who in turned watched the seal he was stalking.

Damn that stupid seagull, anyway. He wouldn’t shut up. Not only was the bird the source of my headache, but he was jeopardizing the hunt itself. It was as though the seal was his buddy, as though he were trying to warn the creature before my father could get within rifle range.

“Great,” I thought, “we’re miles from nowhere, and being harassed by some crazy bird. No seal for us…”

And to top it all off, glaring at that dark dot — which I actually doubted was a seal — was beginning to give me snow-blindness. The glaring landscape was burning itself into my retina, and I was starting to see small black dots when I blinked. My thirst was still with me, and I thought it would surely kill me before my father finally ever nailed the seal.

The one thing that served as a pleasant distraction was my wonder at how patient my father was, stalking in the slush and the layer of melt water over the ice.

The bird’s deliberate attempt to sabotage his stalk was obvious now, and it was only by luck or some unknowable circumstance that the seal had thus far not comprehended the gull’s warning cries.

I tightened my grip on the sled, remembering that it would shoot out like a bullet when the dogs heard the rifle shot. I myself would have only two choices at that moment: either to hold on with all my strength, or be lost like untied supplies.

Suddenly, the dogs sat bolt upright. They executed a little shuffle forward, leaning, as though they were getting ready to pounce. To my eyes, however, nothing had changed in the scene before me. My father was a bit closer, the gull was still crying out, and the seal still lay there, oblivious to his own looming peril.

Yet, even though they were mere dogs, the qimmiit were vastly more experienced hunters than I. They had intuitively sensed that my father was getting in position to shoot. It was a good thing that I hadn’t been lost too deeply in daydreaming, as I would have otherwise missed their sudden anticipation, their movements that rippled with furious energy. Instantly, I seized the sled anchor, ready to release it — as was my duty — and to bounce along on the inevitably insane hurtling movement of the sled speeding forward.

I heard the crack of the rifle, and we all stiffened, just before I realized that the dark dot was now moving. I watched, numbly, as the seal slipped forward, disappearing into its hole.

My father had missed.

When we reached him a few minutes later, he was fuming. He furiously whipped off his anorak and swore,

“Huqutaungittupanalulluk!” (Roughly translated, it means, “Damn that stupid thing!”)

“That seagull warned the seal just as I was ready to shoot!”

So it had not been my imagination.

Pijariiqpunga (for Part Two).