Gerry Dunning's book "When the Foxes Ran" paints a fascinating picture of this family through Charlie's remembrances. When Francis Harper stayed with the family he captured many priceless images on film. The ones of the Inuit coming in to trade at the post are vivid in my memory. But for me, perhaps the most compelling image is the one of Mike about age 10, with Kukwik even younger and her brother Anoteelik about 15 on a caribou hunt. And they weren't play-acting. They went out on their own and killed and butchered their own meat where they camped many miles away from their home. Charlie recounts meeting on their respective trap lines when he and Fred Jr were still in their early teens. He had 28 white foxes and his brother over 60. Adults in the bodies of children.

Not Much Longer We Hope   We paddled for two hours along the edge of a huge barren tundra "almost" mountain called Josie's hill. This hill is named for Joe Highway who in the '30s hunted and trapped and freighted into this country. From Brochet, he fell in love with this land and spent countless hours atop these hills scouting for the herds of caribou. Perhaps those who knew this area and Joe would have called the hill ," Joe his hill," which became Josie's hill. His son is no less than the noted playwright and novelist, Thompson Highway. From the tundra to Toronto in one generation.

Pity the unprepared in this country.

The skies are so low I can touch them. When it isn't pouring torrents, the violent north east wind literally drives fine sheets of mist into your very bones to numb and chill you. Pity the unprepared.

	At worst I am growing bored by sitting. We are prepared. Layers of Northface fleece and gortex and a great little tent, a Marmot Swallow. Although my North face VE25 is a better bet for the extremes of more northern tundra wind and weather, the Swallow is a great tent. With its smaller foot print, I picked it for the leg of the trip where camp spots can be small and "tight". Today I would like the more spacious VE 25, but that is only a matter of greater comfort, not actual necessity.   The Marmot Swallow

As it is, I just have to wait. Right now, the way it looks, we could be here for weeks. As I said, pity the unprepared. Today we hiked to the top of the tundra hills that surround and somewhat shelter us from the wind. Large rocks of solid quartz are littered about. In several places, you can see where people long ago fashioned the stone spearpoints and arrowheads that they needed to kill idthen (caribou). Fed, clothed and sheltered by their friends the caribou, one can only wonder about the intense emotion that must have coursed through them as they saw the herds headed south. Is it any wonder that today their direct descendants the Dene can still be drawn into an animated conversation by one simple question, "Where are the caribou?"

This country and her mercurial nature are pure magic. For those who haven't seen it you can never know. And for you who have, her beauty will haunt your dreams until the day you die and, with luck, perhaps even longer.