Nunavut, Northern Canada
May 13
The Artic sun cast long shadows across the flat, glistening white plain on the shore of Bathurst Inlet. Natan Kudloo and Duane Kotierk, both Inuit, had been driving their snowmobiles hard through the night, thanks to a full moon. Each was pulling a sled, and on each sled was a half-ton machine encased within a rusted steel cage. The cylindrical machine was three-feet tall and painted mint green, with dozens of vertical metal fins spaced evenly around the outside.
Natan clasped his mitten-covered hands against his shoulders, trying to stimulate blood flow into his arms. Although dressed in traditional furs, chill had set in from the long drive through the frigid air. He opened the top of his thermos bottle and swigged tepid coffee.
“I could use something hot to drink,” he said.
Duane surveyed their destination, the outpost of Umingmaktok. The settlement was divided by a runway. On one side were the old Hudson’s Bay Company buildings, and the co-op store. On the other side was the main residential area.
“This place has been deserted for years,” Duane said. “We don’t have time to make a fire and boil water. I doubt they left any generators and fuel behind.”
“Maybe I can heat what’s left of my coffee on this machine.” Natan pointed at the cargo on the sled attached to the back of his snowmobile, recalling how snow kicked up from the track on his snowmobile quickly melted when it settled onto the pale-green machine.
“You don’t want to get too close to those things, or you might begin to glow at night.” Duane chuckled.
He removed a satellite phone from a saddle pack, and trudged toward the nearest building.
“Come on. We can call from inside. There won’t be any wind. At least it will feel warmer.”
Inside, the wood-framed building was empty—no furnishings of any kind, not even a simple chair or stool. No pictures or decorations on the walls. Even the light fixtures that had once hung from the ceiling were gone. Remarkably, all the glass windows were still intact.
“It’s nice they left the door unlocked,” Natan said.
“Why not? Nothing to steal.” Duane removed his mittens and pressed a series of numbers on the Iridium phone keypad.
After a few seconds, the call connected.
“Ranger here. What’s your status?”
The characteristic clipping of the voice communication provided the only differentiation between the satellite communication and a typical cell call.
Duane replied, “Roger. We arrived at the air strip.”
“Confirmed. Flight is inbound. Advise local weather conditions.”
“Clear sky and mild westerly wind. Shouldn’t be any problem for the pilot.”
“Roger that. Will relay your report. Thank you for your service.”
“Okay, Ranger. Say, any reason we need to stick around? We’d like to get back to our village. I mean, if you don’t need our help.”
“No, you should go. When the plane arrives, they’re going to open the casings. But they have proper safety gear, and you don’t want to be anywhere nearby when they do to that.”
Natan and Duane mounted their snowmobiles and sped off. Without the trailing sleds, they soon left the abandoned outpost behind.
s
The de Havilland DHC-2 Beaver buzzed the dirt airstrip at two hundred feet. The iconic aircraft was a favorite of bush pilots flying the backcountry. With a single wing that stretched over the cabin, a square-shaped fuselage that tapered rearward to the tail, and a short, fat nose, the plane had a distinctive appearance.
Although the pilot was concerned about any objects on the runway, she was especially anxious about caribou. Running the single-engine aircraft into a herd of the ungulates, also known as reindeer, would be disastrous for the mission. She executed a low altitude buzz that would surely frighten away any wandering beasts.
Seeing nothing untoward on the short strip, she banked and lined up for the approach. Her three passengers tugged one last time on their seatbelts. The oversized tires kissed the frozen surface and the Beaver bounced once, then twice, before settling down and coasting to a stop near the main buildings.
“Nice landing,” said one of the passengers, who’d introduced himself as Jerry. “Looks like you’ve done this before.”
“More times than I can count. I used to fly bush in Alaska and the Northwest Territories.”
She didn’t look to be older than thirty-five, but she carried herself with confidence and handled the aircraft like a seasoned professional. With a chiseled jaw, pronounced cheekbones, and eyes that matched the blackest obsidian, Sacheen Crow Dog was from the Raven Clan of the Tlingit tribe. She had learned to fly a fixed-wing aircraft before she’d learned to drive.
The tribal elders taught the traditional ways in what seemed a doomed effort to preserve the clan’s heritage and culture, including the Tlingit language. Sacheen had benefited from the passing of knowledge, and like all First Nations people, she sought to live in harmony with Nature.
Her father was a fishing and hunting guide, and he eventually earned enough to buy a small Cessna bush plane. He taught her to fly—initially, fixed-wing aircraft. And later, helicopters. Sacheen worked for her father for thirteen years, before he died from bone cancer. It was during those guided outings that she was first exposed to life outside the limited world of her extended family and clan.
Her father’s customers were mostly well-heeled white men who came to the far north in search of adventure—or so they said. Without exception, they were arrogant men who did not appreciate Nature, and expected to be waited upon like royalty.
She and her father rose early every morning, and were the last to retire at the end of each long day. She cooked the meals, and cleaned up camp, while her father prepared the horses, guided the parties, field dressed the game they shot, and skinned out their trophies. All the while, the pompous rich white men would boast about their skills and accomplishments. At night, they’d drink whiskey until they were intoxicated, which amplified their rudeness and disrespect.
Although her father urged her to have patience with the ignorance of his clients, she soon tired of their behavior. Wasn’t their lack of knowledge that grated on her, but their unwillingness to admit their ignorance and to seek understanding and enlightenment. It was all too clear to her that the effort she and her father put forward for their clients was not appreciated. Regardless of how hard they worked to satisfy their patrons, it was never sufficient.
Unlike her father, who was one with the creatures that inhabited the untamed forest and wild rivers, the men who booked hunting and fishing trips knew next to nothing about the natural world. They did not understand or appreciate the moose and caribou they hunted, or the salmon they fished from the rivers. They saw the animals as merely objects to be taken and counted. And later, once the stories had lost their luster, the objects were to be forgotten.
Sacheen appreciated the gifts of Nature and all that Mother Earth offered to her people. Millenia ago, her people had learned to survive and thrive through the sacrifices of the sacred herbivores and omnivores that roamed the forests, and from the fish that swam the rivers and coastal bays. Each life that was taken had to serve a purpose—that is how the spirit was honored. To waste any part of the sacrifice was to dishonor the spirit, to devalue the life that had been taken.
Sadly, the white men neither shared, nor honored, her cultural heritage and values. They came to her ancestral lands with the singular goal of taking—not because of need to survive, but simply because they could.
Once the propeller on the nose of the Beaver came to a stop, Sacheen opened the cabin door. She pointed to the two sleds left by Natan and Duane.
“There’s your project,” she said. “We don’t have much time. Only a couple hours before the sun sets. I want to take off while we still have at least a sliver of daylight to see the length of the runway.”
“No problem,” said one of the men.
He was of average height and build, like the other two passengers. They all appeared unkept, as if they hadn’t shaved or washed their hair in days.
Sacheen had hired them from Dutch Harbor. They were commercial fishermen, but were lured by the promise of a big payoff for what she’d described as a few days’ work. All three men were flown on a commercial airline to Yellowknife, which is where she’d picked them up in the de Havilland Beaver.
They unloaded their tools and a portable generator, and set to work.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a contraption like this before,” Jerry said. “What is it?”
“A special type of generator,” Sacheen said. “They don’t make them anymore, and I’ve been hired by the government to decommission these two so they don’t rust and contaminate the land and water.”
She was satisfied with telling the men part of the truth, but they didn’t need to know everything.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You didn’t say anything about toxic shit.”
“Just relax, Jerry. Your job is only to cut open the outer shell. Inside is a cannister about this big.” She used her hands to indicate the size. “It’s gray, about the color of pencil lead, and it contains the chemicals the government doesn’t want to corrode and leak out. According to the Ministry of Environment, there’s nothing to worry about. They just want me to turn in the cannisters.”
“You’re sure?”
“Look, if there was a health risk, do you think I’d be standing here next to those machines?”
Jerry held her gaze for a long moment.
“No, I guess not.” He faced his two colleagues. “Come on. Let’s get the generator fired up. Looks like the shell is steel, so that means we gotta use an abrasive blade on the angle grinder to cut through. Let’s make four cuts from top to bottom, then see if we can peel the sides away like an orange.”
One of the men said, “You mean, like a banana.”
Jerry rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Orange, banana—what difference does it make?”
The racket from three grinders’ spinning abrasive discs cutting through the steel drowned out the rumble from the portable generator. As the orange sparks flew, the men focused through clear plastic face shields, careful not to cut too deep. Fortunately, the outer casing was mild steel and only about two-millimeters thick, so the spinning discs made quick work of the cuts.
With the scores completed on both generators, the men silenced the power tools and picked up steel pry bars with gloved hands. An occasional grunt punctuated the exertion required to force the quartered sections of the steel casing to separate. But leverage and brute strength won out, and the men folded the sections back to reveal an aluminum lining bolted to the base. After removing the fasteners, they lifted the lining off and discarded it to the side.
“Looks like lead sheet,” Jerry said, referring to the final layer of packaging. “These things must weigh a ton.”
“There must be several hundred dollars’ worth of scrap aluminum and lead,” one of his coworkers said.
“It’ll cost more than that to fly it out of here,” Jerry replied. “Come on. Let’s peel this lead back. The cannister should be inside.”
“Doesn’t look like any generator I’ve ever seen,” said the other worker. “There should be coils of copper wire and big magnets.”
Jerry shrugged. “What do I know? But she did say it was different, and that’s why the government wants to salvage the inner portion.”
“Hey, where is she, anyway?”
Jerry looked around, and not seeing her, shrugged again.
“I don’t know. Maybe she went into one of the buildings, looking for a bathroom. Who cares. Let’s get this done.”
Removing the soft lead sheet was easy work, exposing a gray graphite cylinder about sixteen-centimeters tall and twelve centimeters in diameter. In contrast to the arctic air, the warmth emanating from the cylinder was obvious.
Jerry removed a glove and moved his hand close.
“That’s a nice hand-warmer,” he said. “Wonder what it is?”
“Hey, guys,” Sacheen called, from the doorway of the largest structure.
It was the old co-op building, and designed with just one large room for meetings and other social gatherings. The windows had been boarded over.
“Why don’t you take a break and come on inside. I found a bottle of whiskey.”
The three men strode toward the building, eager for a break and a strong drink. They pushed through the open doorway and stopped just inside the large room. The only light entered through the opening they’d just passed through.
“Where’d she go?” one of the men said.
They all searched the empty space for her.
The door slammed shut, leaving them in total darkness.
“What the hell?”
“Sacheen, where are you?” Jerry called, fear creeping into his voice.
“I can’t see shit.”
“Use the light on your phone,” the other man said.
Three cell phone lights clicked on, providing meager illumination. The room was empty.
Jerry approached the rear door and tested it. The doorknob turned, but the door was stuck and wouldn’t budge.
“Sacheen,” Jerry called again, his voice trembling.
From outside the old co-op, having just wedged a thick board between the door latch and the plank stoop, she could hear their muted calls. She hurried to the front of the building. Using a heavy timber brace, she barricaded the front door, then closed a hasp to the doorframe and secured it with a padlock. Given enough time and effort, she figured they would break out through one of the doors, or maybe by kicking out the boards covering the windows. But it didn’t matter. She only needed thirty minutes, and she’d be taxiing down the runway and taking to the sky.
Sacheen still had one task to complete. Donning a lead-lined radiation suit she’d removed from a compartment at the rear of the Beaver, complete with head covering fitted with leaded-glass goggles, she used a set of long-handled tongs to remove the graphite cylinder from each generator. One at a time, she carried them to the same storage hold at the back of the aircraft. Inside the compartment was a lead box with two slots just big enough to cradle the cores. She replaced the heavy lead cover and completed one last check to make certain the deadly cargo was secured. After closing the hatch, she slipped out of the bulky suit.
Once strapped into the cockpit, she started the engine. While it was warming, she keyed the radio.
“Ranger here. Cargo is secured.”
“Roger that. What about the hired help?”
She gazed toward the old co-op building.
“I think the radiation sickness will get them before they die of exposure.”
Then she increased power to the engine and began her takeoff roll. A minute later, she was airborne and flying south.