all of northwest Canada that everybody knew on sight. Red had been flying out of Inuvik and into the remote communities for a long, long time. Now and again I would see him at our Northern Store in Aklavik.
Of course he wouldnât know me. I hung back with a doughnut while the two of them made small talk. Pretty quick, the old bush pilot caught my eye and said, âHowâs Jonah?â
âHanging on,â I said, kind of startled.
âGreat hunter, even a better man.â
âThanks. I didnât know you knew him.â
âMet him a couple of times. Admired him from afar. People will tell of his deeds for a long, long time.â
Ryan backed his pickup into Redâs hangar, close to the mountain of gear he had dropped when he drove in from Arizonaâthe rolled-up raft and all that went with it, no end of canned food, and all the camping stuff. We shuttled everything out to the bush plane, a twin-engine Otter, and unloaded onto the tarmac.
Then we waited. I found myself chewing a fingernail, which isnât like me. I wasnât the only one who was nervous. Ryan kept studying the gear, his forehead bunched up like pressure ridges out on the pack ice. He handed me a butane lighter. I told him I already had a couple. âKeep this one in your pocket,â he said.
Finally Red appeared at the door of his office. He put on his sunglasses and limped in our direction. He was famous for having walked away from four crashes.
With a glance at the gear, Red said, âLetâs load her up and make history, boys!â
A short while later we were airborne. Up front next to Red, Ryan snapped dozens of pictures as we flew west across the wide delta of the Mackenzie, pausing only to exclaim âAmazing!â and âAwesome!â and suchlike.
This was my first time to see the delta from the air. I spied some of my favorite places to trap muskrats and the exact spot where I got that moose just lately. âAklavik!â my brother cried, fifteen minutes into the flight. I almost wished I hadnât insisted he take the copilotâs seat, after Red had offered it to me.
Our pilot made sure I got a good look at home. I heard the shutter of Ryanâs camera whirring. Looking right down on the airstrip and the school and Jonahâs house, I nearly lost it. Had I made the right decision?
About ten minutes later we passed over that invisible line between the Northwest Territories and the Yukon Territory. I was keeping my eyes peeled for caribou as we flew surprisingly low over the rolling ups and downs of the treeless tundra, green as green can be.
An hour and a half into the flight, Red finally pulled back on the yoke, and we began to climb. The British Mountains in the heart of Ivvavik National Park lay dead ahead. âHey, Red,â I asked through the intercom, âhow come you fly your Otter so close to the ground?â
âBecause Iâm afraid of heights.â
Was he kidding? I really couldnât tell.
Now I was looking down on a jigsaw puzzle of the rugged British Mountains. I didnât like the sound of the name. They should be called the name that theyâd gone by for a thousand years and more, before the Europeans made up their own. Jonah would have known our names for the British Mountains and the Firth River. I wished I had asked him.
Below the rounded mountaintops, the steep slopes were clad with a carpet of bright green alpine tundra. The long hours of sunshine the last couple months had melted most of the snow. What remained made white patches on the slopes facing north. I was surprised to see stunted spruce trees growing on the lower flanks of the south-facing slopes. Except for the delta of the Mackenzie, warmed by the river water, the Arctic this far north is too cold for trees. The mountains, I figured, must shield these trees from the winter blasts blowing off the frozen ocean.
Looking nearly straight down out of my window, I spied a herd