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National Geographic : 1974 Mar
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nameless massive gray animal-part dog, part wolf. She was haughty and proud, possessed of great strength and character. She always seemed to know what was expected of her, and she did her job well. She would not allow us to pet her, but there had never been any need to discipline her. Napaseekadlak had an amazing rapport with dogs, speaking to them with just the right inflec tions to keep the team working at top efficiency. But once, near the end of a long day as we raced a storm toward a DEW line station a dozen miles away, his urging failed. The big gray leader had simply gone as far as she wanted to go. So he hit her. From that moment, she was driven by defiance. She continued on for a time, but her movements were full of spite. For example, when commanded to go right, she would make a sharp 90-degree turn, rather than the gradual swing in that direction. We finally gave up and made camp. But the dog wasn't to forget the humiliation of having been struck. That night, as the storm bore down on us, that magnificent animal stood erect, with her face to the wind-stood like that until she could stand no longer. She fell only after the savage wind had sucked the last bit of life from her. WE WOKE UP on the morning of June 11 to leave the land for the last time by dogsled. Here the sea ice and shore were separated by open water. Just the night before, we had scrambled to the beach on a floating bridge of ice, which was now a flimsy, half-melted honeycomb. To get back over to our highway on the frozen sea, I attempted to pole-vault across with the long stick, which Eskimos call an ayoutak, used to probe for holes under the meltwater on the ice. I fell short, and reached the sea ice wet and annoyed. I pulled the lead dog across by rope, and the others, being harnessed to the trace, had to swim across. But Napaseekadlak was left stranded. He finally worked his way across on a narrow ice bridge, which collapsed. He, too, was soaking wet, but it could have been worse. Like most Eskimos, Napaseekadlak could not swim. At Nicholson Peninsula photographer Nicholas deVore flew in to join us for the last leg of the sled journey. Our progress was good until we came to a place where a stream had poured its flood out onto the sea ice. Leading the dogs, we carefully waded "The sun revolved in a clear sky as we threaded our way past pools of water atop the ice," wrote Colin after a ride through a sunlit night near Nicholson Peninsula. NICHOLASDEVOREIII 313
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