September/October 2008

And the Winners Are...
Great Northern Canada Writing Contest

Michel Labine of Fort Smith and Alicia Tumchewics of Yellowknife have received top honours in the
Great Northern Canada Writing Contest, sponsored by above&beyond and the NorthWords Writers Festival.

Michel was awarded first prize of $500 for his story The Hunt, while Alicia received the Emerging Writer’s prize of $250 for her story Easter Sunrise. Both of the stories are non-fiction.

The winners were announced at the closing Gala of the Third Annual NorthWords Writers Festival, which took place in Yellowknife June 12 to 14.

The festival, dubbed by the organizers as the most successful yet, was a medley of readings by leading Canadian authors, open mikes, workshops and panel discussions. The closing
Gala, a highlight of the festival, featured readings by authors Lesley Choyce, Michael Crummey, Anita Daher, Bernice Morgan, Annelies Pool, Jennifer Storm and Richard Van Camp. Many
local Yellowknife authors also gave readings throughout the Festival.

above&beyond congratulates the story contest winners. Their stories follow:

The Hunt
By Michel J. Labine

Five hours into our trip home, a spring storm began blowing in. The drifting snow made visibility very poor, so we headed to an abandoned outpost cabin.

By the time we arrived, the weather had deteriorated further.
A Polar Bear hunt has always been relished as a special occasion to Inuit hunters. After having lived in Cape Dorset for five years, I got invited to tag along on such a hunt by an Inuit friend of mine, Peter, who had received a 10-day window to harvest a bear under the local quota.

We departed by snowmobile with our loaded qamutiit in tow. Our trip was to take us to the southwest corner of Baffin Island, east of Cape Dorset. Conditions were excellent, with above-average weather for March. The long days and fresh snowfall made tracking and finding bear signs optimal. Our snowmobiles were performing well, finding snow for building igloos was easy. The food, company, and stories were all great.

On Day Nine of our trip, we had made it to the north side of the Foxe Peninsula, and had yet to find signs of the elusive male polar bear. We packed for the 240-kilometre trip overland back to Cape Dorset, and it looked like we were leaving bear country empty-handed.

Our mood was grim as we departed for the trip home without having seen a harvestable polar bear. Five hours into our trip home, a spring storm began blowing in. The drifting snow made visibility very poor, so we headed to an abandoned outpost cabin.

By the time we arrived, the weather had deteriorated further. We grabbed our sleeping bags, caribou hides, food, our Coleman stove, and retreated to the matchbox cabin to sit out the storm.
I repaired the broken window with a garbage bag, and then cooked a feast to celebrate having a roof over our heads that didn’t melt. I had enjoyed the experience of living in igloos for the first part of our trip, but had missed my hot meals. I really put on a spread, and the aroma was enticing. We ate ’til our bellies were full, sipped tea, then retired to sleep out the storm. About three in the morning, we were awakened by noise outside. I opened the door to see a nine-foot male polar bear right beside our guns that were still strapped to our snow machines. Startled by my flashlight, the bear came toward the cabin. I closed the door, and he shoved against the wall and door. The strong cross brace on the door flexed and we were certain he was going to break through. Instead, he went around to the back and ripped open the garbage
bag on the window, sticking his head through the hole. I will never forget the sound of his blowing, snorting and jaw popping.

To my relief, he backed out of the window. But he put his large clawed paw back through the hole and pushed and pulled on the wall. The whole cabin, (which is made up of insulated plywood
panels put together with strips of 3/8- inch plywood) moved back and forth. Then he went on the roof and pounced down, as though trying to break through the thin ice on a seal lair. The ordeal went on for hours as the bear moved back and forth between the roof, the door and window.

All the while Peter lay calmly in his sleeping bag telling me that the Polar Bear would eventually get bored and wander away. We joked about how the bear had come to find us, but as time went
on, the jokes wore thin. The bear wasn’t going to leave, and neither could we.

Finally, I looked at Peter and said, “We’re going to have to do something or this bear will have us for breakfast.” Peter held up the long-handled, cast-iron frying pan, and calmly said, “use this to
distract the bear and I’ll go out and get my gun.”

The next time the bear stuck his head through the window, I swung the frying pan and let him have it with all my might. It hit him square in the nose, and the force of the blow snapped the handle of the pan. His bones broke with a crunch, then he screamed and threw himself backwards, leaving blood and snot on the pan, my arms and the wall. I turned on my flashlight and saw him thrashing and pawing at his face, the snow covered with
his blood. Then I heard a shot, and it was over.

Peter later told me that he’d shot the bear to end his misery. We skinned the bear and celebrated with a hearty breakfast before heading back to town. Peter insisted I get the hide. Every time I look at it on the wall of my safe home, I remember that hunt.

Michel J. Labine’s story, The Hunt, was awarded first prize in the Great Northern Canada Writing Contest, sponsored by above&beyond and the NorthWords Writers Festival.

Easter Sunrise
By Alicia Tumchewics

To the east, dawn was streaked in pale grey, but
otherwise the sky was black. I skied past the docks at
the old mine, through the pools of orange light, back
into darkness. It wasn’t smooth skiing, but my skis
still slid easily over the corrugated track.

Easter in Yellowknife is not about daffodils. It’s about watching the sunrise shine on the ice of Yellowknife Bay on Easter morning.

I had been looking forward to the interdenominational Easter Sunrise Service on top of Bush Pilots’ Monument, that towers above the Old Town, all week. I was house sitting and taking care of two dogs in a house on the bay, and when I got up to ski across the ice to the service, it was still dark. Having lived here my whole life, though, I am used to skiing in the dark, and I had company. I counted on Tindi, the friendly little black dog I was taking care of, to follow me. I planned to tie her up in the parking lot at the bottom of the hill while I went up to worship.

I skied over the rough snowmobile tracks on the ice. To the east, dawn was streaked in pale grey, but otherwise the sky was black. I skied past the docks at the old mine, through the pools of orange light, back into darkness. It wasn’t smooth skiing, but my skis still slid easily over the corrugated track. Isha, the other dog I was taking care of, followed us like a proud lone wolf.

I expected her to turn around because she was an arthritic old Malamute who rarely wanted to have anything to do with people. She growled savagely the first time I tried to pat her, and we’d kept a polite distance all week. Hardly a dog I wanted to bring to church. I told her to go home. She looked
at me, blinked, and kept moving.

“Isha!” I shouted, “Go home!”

Nothing doing. Tail held high, she trotted down the lake beside Tindi.

I felt a touch of despair. If I turned back, she might follow, but I would miss the service. But she couldn’t come into town with Tindi and I. She would bite people. She smelled bad, dropped splotchy diarrhea and would only obey if she felt like it. Besides, I only had one leash.

‘Go home, Isha!” I yelled again. I felt like crying.

“Go home!”

I waited.

Isha looked at me, turned around, sniffed, turned back again, and kept going.

“God,” I prayed, “Please make Isha turn around. Please. I am trying to do something for You,” I reminded Him. “And it’s not working out very well.”

My mind crowded with thoughts of hatred for disobedient animals, scenarios involving bylaw officers, fines, getting pulled over for traffic infractions on the way to the pound and never being invited back to house sit again. But I kept skiing toward the Old Town. And both dogs followed. “GO HOME ISHA!” I hollered, “GO
ON! GET!”

She wouldn’t. Tindi looked up at me, whimpered and ran off to find a stick. Resolutely, I went on skiing. I had to be at the hill top by 7 a.m. Isha stayed with me.
I expected Tindi to come running, ready to play fetch. I looked back. She’d run home.

I felt awful. I’d scared Tindi and still had ogrely old Isha who stayed with me all the way to the landing where I took off my skis and tried to get close enough to put on the leash. Carefully, I felt around for her collar in the thick fur, indented at her strong neck. She wasn’t even wearing one. She growled and stalked off.

We walked up the shore, into Old Town. She went straight to the dumpster at Bullock’s Bistro. “Isha!” I called her back. She lifted her head blithely and ignored me. Eventually, I managed to lead her up the hill where we met a fellow husky owner. “Oh, God! NO!” I said, as the dogs approached, hackles raised. “She’s not friendly,” I said, “And she’s not supposed to be here.”

“Oh,” the owner replied. He called his dog, who followed meekly and they both disappeared.

I corralled Isha who was clawing open a snow bank and cautiously lassoed her with the leash. It caught her shoulder. I hated her more.

I loosened the leash and she stepped out of it, and I had to catch her all over again. That was easy since she was still pawing the snow bank. I led her over to the edge of the parking lot. She followed me into the deep snow while I tried to
wrap the end of the leash to a post firmly enough to hold, but loosely enough that I could undo it with numb fingers after the service.

Cars arrived. People parked some distance away. Maybe they were intimidated by the big, brown and grey dog. Finally, a blonde woman parked her car in front of us. I waited for the dog to tear up the parking barrier trying to bite her when she got out, but Isha just gazed up at me with more curiosity than malevolence, like a grizzly bear who has decided she wants to make friends. It was five minutes to seven and people were climbing the stairs to the Monument, bulky parkas like warm robes, mittens wrapped around coffee mugs. I layered on more fleece. Isha lay down politely. “ Good dog,” I patted her. At the last minute, I left her with my skis and clattered up the stairs. At the top, everyone had clustered into groups of families and friends, breath rising in clouds. Some old friends and neighbours were there and we smiled and waved, rosy cheeked in the cold air. A man in a red parka handed out song sheets. I stood on the hill above Yellowknife, below the wide sky now lit by the daily triumph of sunrise.

I looked back down the Bay, out past the islands the way I had come, and sang my heart out.

Alicia Tumchewics’ story, Easter Sunrise, was awarded the Emerging Writer Prize in the Great Northern Canada Writing Contest sponsored by above&beyond and the NorthWords Writers
Festival.