Author's note: On May 20, 1999, my dad, Doug Sheldon, and his friend Raymond Brown did not return from a hunting trip on the ice of the Chukchi Sea. This essay is dedicated to my dad. Dad adopted me as a baby and loved me unconditionally. We shared a wonderful relationship. Many years ago I told him I was going to marry a woman whom he knew had a son; what he said to me that day always reminds me of what Jesus said: "As my Father loved me, so I have loved you, continue in my love." John 15:9
"Two-thirty-two home base." Pause.
"Go ahead, this is two-thirty-two home base."
"Ya, Tess, we finished checking the net. We'll be home in about 20 minutes."
"Gee whiz, so early? I thought you were going to be gone for the night."
I keyed the mic on the old CB radio and started laughing. I'd gotten her again, pretending to be Dad. Mom feigned her anger audibly over the airwaves as Dad and I laughed and sipped hot coffee we had just brewed on the Coleman primus stove. We had spent a lot of time together in the wooden skiffs he built over the years. Tonight we would spend mostly in silence, waiting for a pod of beluga to come close to the shallows.
I look nothing like my dad. I don't sound like my dad. I'm not even related to my dad except by the wonderful way of adoption. And yet I could fool his wife, my mom, into thinking that it was her husband talking to her. Sometimes I would answer the telephone at his house and begin conversations with his friends, leading them on through a few sentences. I loved it. It began long ago.
Never would I have known or guessed it, but over time, as I grew from boyhood to a young man, a subtle transformation was taking place as I would listen to and observe Dad living life. In retrospect, it seems that everything was just a natural flow of work while he provided for the family of nine children. Although there was no anxiousness about today or tomorrow, he was always on the go.
As kids we had plenty of time to play with other children or amongst ourselves, and we could count on plenty of chores to fill in an idle moment or two. Then there was this other "time" -- not as in "time to do this or that," or "time to stop" -- maybe the best I can describe it is whenever it was this "time," it was focused. This focus was on "aapa" (Inupiaq for father) and whatever it was he was doing; perhaps building a basket sled or a boat, shaping a new harpoon or weaving a net. Like many Inupiaq men he was not boisterous or rambling with his words. It seemed he had an uncanny way of knowing just when to say something that would make an impression, not just in the mind, but somehow connecting at an even deeper level of the soul. It was these "times" that experiential growth was tangible. We have a word for it: "qaugri," a realization or understanding moment.
Many things in Inupiaq culture need no spoken words, only observation; that is what is expected all the time, especially when hunting. Hunting is a quiet time, peaceful and sacred. When an animal gives its life and dies another awakening is realized, for this death means that another will live. There will be food to eat -- and oh, nothing tastes so good as "niki piaq," real Eskimo food.
In those formative boyhood years, during the month of June, when we were out on the ocean among the floes of winter's receding ice pack hunting for ugruq, the large bearded seal, Aapa would softly speak of weather patterns, passing along to me what he learned from his aapa and his taata (grandfather) who learned it from their father and grandfather. Even as we were shrouded in the thick gray fog 30 miles or more from land, Aapa used the "time." He pointed out that in the fog "our eyes fool us." We might see an ugruq or ice floe we think is far away, yet unknowingly we could be dangerously close to fast-moving ice, or perhaps about to happen upon the ugruq that would provide food for the family.
I watched my aapa as he reached into his sealskin tool bag and removed a 3-pound lead weight attached to a long coiled twine. He set it over the edge of the boat, which was fastened to an ice floe with the anchor. He let out 30 fathoms or so until the weight rested on the ocean floor. I saw the twine quickly tighten against the ice, which indicated the current was strong and we were being pushed by the ice, not following it. According to the time of day, the tide would be coming in or rising. Without compass or horizon, Aapa pointed in a direction: "That's north and this way is northeast to our camp." I replayed the last five or so minutes in my head several times until it settled and found its rest. He had never taken the time to explain the lesson, and neither did I question it.
A couple of hours later, still in the fog, he pulled to a large ice pad and glanced at the sealskin bag. No words were exchanged, but I knew that it was my turn to mimic what I observed earlier.
"Suluuq tamaani," (Suluuq is over there) I pointed after pulling the lead weight back into the boat. He steered the boat in the direction I'd indicated and we drove onward. The fog lifted and surprisingly to me, but not to him, we had a true course. I witnessed the grin on his face.
Apa was confident in what he had learned from his aapa; he had passed along his skills as was expected of him. The expression of satisfaction he displayed was not pride in his good job of teaching nor in my learning; the satisfaction belonged to a much larger picture than the experiences of the past two or three hours. Aapa instinctively knew that passing along survival skills and the way of life to yet another generation meant that the Inupiat would not die. His heart also knew that the Inupiaq value of responsibility to tribe belonged to and somehow was a part of him; if he was negligent or irresponsible, generations would suffer, and life would become difficult and forever changed. No one can count the child apprentices who qaugri under this silent tutelage. Later, when all the work was done for the day, passing still with little conversation, Aapa softly broached the quietness:
"Iginiing (son), you learned."
Nothing more was said, but the house suddenly seemed very warm.
"Tomorrow," I spoke to myself, "I will watch some more. My aapa is wise, and I will do anything for him."
I have always felt protected by Dad. It was easy to want to please him. In time I learned he adopted me after he married my mom when I was a year old. He had four kids of his own from a previous marriage and together he and mom had four more children. I was in the middle. I do not know who my biological father is, only that he must have been Caucasian. I am light-complected and the odd one of the family. Maybe subconsciously I tried to emulate Dad to fit in or be accepted, but somehow I don't believe that to be true. Dad took me in totally and I responded to his demonstrated love. Our family was not very expressive verbally in talk of love or other matters of the heart. Learn from him I did; we were tight. If he did choose to use words, I listened. If I was told to do something, I did it.
One day I sought out my dad as he was putting a new bottom on his wooden boat. I sat back and watched perfect curls peel away from the wood. His smooth back-and-forth strokes with the hand plane seemed effortless. I'd seen this many times before. After some time he looked up.
"What's up, Rob?"
"Dad, I just wanted to tell you that Loagie and I are planning on getting married."
He laid down the tool in his hand, his deep brown eyes and mine riveted together.
"Well, you will have to love and take care of her boy just like I did for you."
Nothing more was said, but again, suddenly, it felt very warm.
My aapa is wise; I will listen to him.
Robert Sheldon grew up in Kotzebue and Kiana. He currently lives in the village of Noatak and is studying to be a teacher through RANA, Alaska Pacific University's distance education program. The use of semi-broken English and Inupiaq language is purposeful and intended to reflect speech as it is commonly used.