Chapter Eight
Several days later Sarah Caribou brought several children to the aid station with severe colds, and Luke decided one child had pneumonia, which would require several penicillin injections daily. Luke asked Sarah if she would be willing to give the injections in the village, and she jumped at the chance. He gave her written orders as to how and when it should be done, and she quickly grasped his instructions.
Luke asked her if there were many colds in the village, and she replied that a large percentage of the Eskimos, both children and adults, had the sniffles and running noses, which was common for this time of year.
She also told him that soon many of the families would take down their tents and move out to winter hunting areas, in accordance with their nomadic life styles. She said they would also remove all their summer cloth apparel, would grease their bodies with whale blubber, and would then don shirts, parkas, pants, and boots, all made of skins, which were mostly obtained from the caribou or seal. These would be left on all winter without changing. She explained that although this might seem dirty to him, it was a matter of practicality. They would sweat very little in the frigid winter months, and it was too cold to take a bath, anyway.
She also told him that the RCAF was giving a huge party in the mess hall that evening for all the Eskimos, to celebrate the coming hunting.season. She hoped that Luke could come to see it. Late that day RCAF Major Kane also dropped by and urged Luke to come, promising quite a show.
Evening came, and over three hundred Eskimos crowded into the mess hall. First a buffet dinner was served, Canadian style. The native preferred to eat mostly with their fingers, and like fish the best. They sat on the floor, and kept on their boots and parkas throughout, although the mess hall was heated. Then the young men gathered in the center of the hall, and began to dance. To Luke’s surprise, they did not do native dances, but did intricate Scottish reels to the music of fiddles, accordions, and bagpipes, played by Canadian airmen! Luke decided this must have come from early Scottish whalers or missionaries.
Soon the women were invited to join in, which they did eagerly, except for the mothers with small babies in the hoods of their parkas, who stamped and clapped to the music on the sidelines.
Sarah took Luke’s hand and invited him to dance with her. He felt a bit reluctant, but she encouraged him saying, "it is easy! I shall show you!"
And she did! Luke soon caught on, and they had a wonderful time dancing! However, he could not help but notice the odor from all those fully clothed, exercising, unwashed bodies in that heated mess hall. But he did not mention it to Sarah, not wishing to embarrass her. And he was choking from cigarette smoke. All the Eskimos smoked! Yet when it was over Luke realized that this was the experience of a lifetime, one seen by very few Americans.
Luke thanked Sarah for a fascinating evening. She told him that her father and younger brother were going seal and walrus hunting the next day, but that she, her mother, and paternal grandmother would be remaining at Frobisher village for awhile, at least until her father returned.
The next morning Constable Bulloch stopped by the aid station, and asked Luke if he would like to join him on a tour of the Eskimo village to watch the hunters prepare to set out on the trail. He also said that it would be interesting to see some of the families taking down their tents, packing their dogsleds, and hitching up their team as they prepared to hit the trail. Now that there was enough snow, they would build igloos, and not use the tents much.
Luke found that the village was a beehive of activity, with noise and bedlam. The Eskimo huskies, the best sled dogs in the world, were barking excitedly, and their owners were having a difficult time to keep them from snarling and fighting with each other. Tents were coming down for storage. Gear and supplies were being loaded on sleds. And some of the sled drivers who had arranged for an early start were shouting good-byes to their friends, and were cracking whips over their teams and yelling, "Mush!" It was all very picturesque and exciting!
There was generally an atmosphere of excitement and happiness, but some of the women remaining behind looked rather subdued. They knew that they might never see their men again. Drowning headed the list, but accidents, freezing to death, and mauling by polar bears were also common.
And when a woman lost her man, her life became immeasurably more difficult, since she lost her meal ticket, and would have to struggle for survival on her own. There would be much weeping in her igloo!
The constable told Luke that the Eskimos have no formal marriage ceremony, despite the attempt of the missionaries to encourage it. If a couple like each other, the two families talked it over, and if there was agreement, they moved in together. If things went well, and especially if children arrived, they considered themselves married.
As they walked around the village, Luke was appalled at the stench. It was due to a mixture of odor of fish, rotting seal, whale, and walrus carcasses, also with a predominance of human and dog excreta, scattered haphazardly around the village.
Luke carefully inquired if they had been given instruction on the construction of slit trenches, landfills for refuse and garbage, and the boiling or chlorination of drinking water.
The constable replied, "I have repeatedly urged them to adopt these public health practices, but their answer is always the same, ‘What was good enough for our fathers, is good enough for us, so why change?’ One good sign is the increasing influence of those who finish high school on the rest of the people. Take Sarah Caribou, for example. She has finished high school, and is highly intelligent. The others take her advice seriously, and even the head man of the village may ask her opinion, which is unusual in this male dominated society."
He went on to say, "We have high hopes that she will get a scholarship to attend nursing school in St. Johns, and then will return to serve this community. The Northwest territories are huge, and the Eskimo and Indian peoples have a very small representation at the parliament in Ottawa, as well as here. For example, there are only two government representatives for all the ‘skimos on Baffin Island, myself and one other member of the RCMP on the north end of the island."
And he concluded by saying, "I have thought about this a lot, and my conclusion is that the salvation of these native people may lie in education, if only we can get more of them to seek it! It is amazing that they have been able to survive in this harsh northern climate for centuries, but I fear they may become extinct if they do not accept more of the ways of the white man."
Luke replied, "Your comments fascinate me! And the problems you have touched upon make me mindful of those among our American Indians in the United States."
Sarah Caribou joined them and asked Luke to see several patients in the village. He checked out several women in active labor, but he could find no complications, so remanded care to the older women who acted as midwives.
He set and splinted the broken wrist of a boy who had fallen off a sled. The boy was very stoical, and made no complaints of pain. Luke wished he had an x-ray machine to check alignment, but there was none available here, so he just had to do the best he could.
Most of the children had runny noses, and many had cold sores on their faces. Many of the adults were coughing. He sewed up fresh lacerations on several of the men. He instructed Sarah to have them go to the aid station for tetanus immunization that day, and to return in a week for suture removal.
He saw several children and adults complaining of weight loss, night sweats, and cough with sputum production. In several instances, Sarah was able to elicit a history of active pulmonary tuberculosis in the family. Luke told her to be sure that all of these patients would have chest x-rays when the supply ship came with a Canadian physician aboard the next summer. Or if their condition deteriorated, they would have to be flown to the hospital for Eskimos and Indians near Ottawa.
Luke continued to be amazed at how intelligent and competent Sarah was!
After they finished making rounds on patients, Sarah took Luke to her tent to meet her family. She introduced her mother Rebecca, who was about 40, her younger brother, John, who was twelve, and her father Jonah, who was about 45, and was unusually large and powerful for an Eskimo.
They offered him mukto, which Luke manfully ate, and Jonah proudly showed off his team of huskies. He settled John on the sled, waved goodbye, and cracked his whip over the team. They headed off to the east, planning to hunt along the north shore of Frobisher Bay.
There was quite a lot of military activity at the base the next few days. Most of the work on the fuel storage tanks and the runway had been completed, so 45 men of Company A, 973rd Engineer Construction Battalion were flown back to their home base at Fort Carson, Colorado. Only a handful of engineers remained to wrap things up.
The civilian construction company was making good progress on the radar installation. A small unit of transportation corps troops was flown in to unload a last minute shipment of military trucks, snow plows, and aircraft landing equipment, which were brought in by an LST on a last-minute hazardous mission up ice-choked Frobisher Bay. They were also ordered to winterize all vehicles on the base. The scuttlebutt was that the big brass were determined to keep Frobisher Air Base open all winter.
And the next day this rumor was given more credence when six Sabre jets flew over the field in formation, and then landed one at a time. The flight commander announced that his aircraft were to be stationed permanently at Frobisher! Bear Bombers beware!
All of this military activity was duly reported over nightly short wave radio by Moscow Molly, which raised the frustration of the security people and Constable Bulloch to a high level. Try as they would, they had been unable to determine the source of the security leak. Although they felt that it must be a local radio contact, since the information got through to Moscow Molly so quickly.
Several days later Sarah came to the aid station to help with the Eskimo sick call. She wore a worried look on her face, and said that her father and brother were several days overdue on returning from their hunting trip, and that some of the men were searching for them with dog teams along the north shore of the bay.
By the next day there was still no sign of them, so Constable Bulloch requested the assistance of an RCAF reconnaissance plane which flew in that afternoon. The pilots interviewed a worried Sarah and her mother for information as to where the men might have gone to hunt. They then took off to start their search.
Within an hour they radioed back that they had located a sled with several dead dogs around it, and what looked like an injured boy lying on the ice on the north side of the bay about twenty miles east of Frobisher Air Base. The boy waved at them, but apparently could not walk. They could see several areas of red blood stains on the snow in the vicinity, but they could see no sign of a man.
Bulloch growled, "Sounds like a polar bear, and it doesn’t look good for Jonah! It’s almost dark, but we best start at once! We’ll use a snow cat with search lights. I’ll get several of the ‘skimos to come along with rifles in case the bear is still in the vicinity."
Luke said, "Ian, you better let me go with you. That boy may need immediate medical attention, and his father, too, if he is still with us!"
The constable replied, "You’re right! Please come at once!"
Sarah also tearfully begged to go. Bulloch did not like the idea, but Luke interceded on her behalf, stating how good she was at nursing, so the constable finally acquiesced, although reluctantly.
Soon the snow cat appeared with two armed Eskimo men, who were among the best hunters in the village. Luke hugged Sarah’s mother, Rebecca, and told her that they would do their best. Sarah helped him load an Army basket stretcher aboard, along with his first aid kit, surgical instruments, plasma, and morphine. And they started off into the quickly gathering night, with headlights on, and searchlights at the ready.
It was slow going along the rocky north shore of the bay which also had a heavy buildup of large chunks of ice, washed up by the tide, which was just receding. After a few hours the tide had gone down enough so that they could make better time on the floor of the bay.
They had sandwiches and coffee, but their fear mounted as to what they might find. When the odometer reached eighteen miles they slowed down a bit and started playing the searchlights all around the snow cat.
It seemed an eternity, during which they began to feel they might not find their hunters until morning, when Sarah suddenly cried out, "There is the sled, dead ahead!"
And indeed she was right! They could see the sled lying on its side near a hummock of ice, its contents scattered everywhere in disarray. As they advanced they could see the bodies of several dead huskies nearby, and the snow around them was laced with darkening red blood. Neither father Johan, nor brother John could be seen. Miserable anxiety was written all over Sarah’s face.
Bulloch stopped the snow cat just short of the overturned sled, and illuminated the area with his spotlights. He ordered the Eskimo hunters to check the area to make sure that no polar bear was lurking nearby.
They soon reported that the area was clear, so the others exited the snow cat and began the search for victims. Sarah called the names of her father and brother in Eskimo and English over and over, but there was no response.
Finally one of the hunters pointed to a wide path in the snow which gave the appearance of a person having crawled or being dragged across the snow to the base of the ice hummock. And there was a trail of blood along the path. As they followed the path with mounting apprehension, a weak voice called out, "Help! Over here!"
At the end of the trail they found, to their great relief, young John lying in a depression, around which he had piled up the snow to construct a makeshift igloo to protect himself from the cold.
They all converged on the spot, and Sarah held him in her arms, with tears of relief running down her cheeks. She asked him, "Are you all right?"
And he answered with understatement, "Maybe almost!"
Her next anxious question was, "Where is daddy?"
Tears welled up in his eyes as he replied, "I’m afraid the bear got him! If he is alive at all, he will be down by the bay! Please go quickly and see if you can find him!"
Sarah told the two Eskimo hunters in their language to run to the bay on the double and check out the situation, which they did.
Luke quickly stepped in to give John a preliminary examination. He could easily see that the polar bear had given him quite a mauling. He was pale from loss of blood, and his pulse was weak and thready; however his blood pressure was fair at 80/50, and he was breathing all right. His face was badly lacerated from the bites and clawing by the bear. Fortunately his eyes had been spared. His left leg had been badly mauled and bitten, and the skin had been laid open down to the muscle in several areas, and this was why he could not walk. However, no bones had been broken.
The worst injury was to his left hand. The fourth and fifth fingers had been bitten almost completely off, and there was still mild arterial and venous bleeding from the wounds. Luke applied a tourniquet around the wrist and ordered Sarah to loosen it briefly every fifteen minutes to prevent gangrene from developing in the rest of the hand.
While the constable and the Eskimos were searching the area for the bear, and for Jonah, in the remote possibility that he might still be alive, Sarah and Luke moved John back to the snow cat by the basket stretcher, and loaded him inside, where it was warmer, and first aid treatment could be given.
Luke ordered Sarah to carefully clean the wounds with hydrogen peroxide, apply sulfa powder, and then affix dry sterile dressings. In the meanwhile Luke started one unit of plasma into John’s right arm to combat his incipient shock. He got out his surgical instruments, identified the arterial bleeders in the left fourth and fifth finger lacerations, and was able to tie them off, rendering the tourniquet no longer necessary. The venous bleeding was controlled by direct pressure. The warmth inside the snow cat, and the medical treatment produced some improvement in his clinical condition.
The constable and the hunters returned, and reported they could find no sign of Jonah; however there was a lot of blood at the edge of the bay, with signs of bear tracks, and something having been dragged. Then the bear tracks moved inland towards a ridge, and were accompanied by a trail of blood, but they could not follow the tracks far because of darkness.
Bulloch asked John to tell them what he could and he answered as follows: "Two or three days ago my father and I camped overnight here, planning to hunt seal and walrus when the tide came in the next morning. We were awakened by the barking and growling of the dogs at dawn and saw the largest male polar bear I have ever seen entering the camp. The huskies attacked him, but he killed most of them with a few swats of his paws. My father grabbed his rifle and shot the bear several times in the chest, but this did not stop him. He charged and knocked the rifle out of my father’s hand with one slap of his paw!"
He continued, "The bear then knocked my father down, mauled and bit him terribly! My father fought back with his hunting knife, but was no match for the bear, who then started to maul and bite me. My father, although badly bleeding and wounded, crawled over and threw his body over me to try to protect me against the bear. Finally the bear dragged my father, who seemed to be dead, into the water of the bay, since the tide was in. the last I saw of him, his body sank beneath the water and disappeared."
John concluded, "I thought surely the animal would kill me next, but he was dripping blood from his bullet wounds, and instead he walked over a ridge to the north. I thanked God that I had been spared, but feared that I might still die from my wounds, even if the bear did not return. And then the airplane saw me, and you came to my rescue!"
Luke spoke to the constable and said, "Ian, we must get John back to the aid station as quickly as possible for surgery and treatment!"
Bulloch replied, "Understood! I shall leave the two ‘skimo hunters here with snowshoes and their rifles to search further for Johah, although I think it very doubtful they will find him dead or alive, since the strong tides have probably pulled him far down the bay. And they also need to track down that polar bear and shoot him before he kills someone else! I’ll have them picked up later."
So they started back in the dark, with the headlights reflecting brightly off the ice packed along the bay. It was a bumpy ride, causing John to groan with pain, so Luke gave him morphine for relief. Sarah held his good hand, and did her best to comfort him.
Sarah said, "I dread telling my mother about father, but it is some consolation that John is alive. There will be much wailing in our tent!"
Luke asked Bulloch to notify the base by walkie-talkie that they were bringing John in, and he would require surgery, so they should roust out Sgt. Redd and have him set up for emergency surgery at the aid station.
It was several hours, and nearly dawn before they arrived back at the base. Sarah’s anxious mother and other members of her family were waiting, along with the Duty Officer and Sgt. Redd.
Sarah gently told her mother what had happened, and she fought back the tears. Luke put his arm around her and said, It looks bad of Jonah, but remember that you still have a son, and he has a fairly good chance for survival. So we shall do our best for him, and within a few years you will again have a man to head your family!"
Rebecca replied, "We shall be ever grateful to you, luta. May I talk to my boy before surgery?"
Luke had John taken to the aid station and ordered a stat blood count. He started a second unit of plasma, and gave him more morphine. He asked Sarah to help him, and to scrub in later for the surgery, if she did not mind. She was eager to do so, and her brother wanted her to do it.
The blood count indicated that John had indeed lost considerable blood, and his hemoglobin was only six grams, where it should have been over fourteen. He badly needed a blood transfusion. Sarah had no idea what blood types she and John had, so Luke decided he would give his patient a pint of his own blood, which was universal donor type O Rh negative. He ran a line from his arm vein to John’s intravenous and had Sarah control the transfusion by raising or lowering his arm. It went well and the patient showed no signs of transfusion reaction, and his color improved.
While the transfusion was going, Luke ordered Sgt. Redd to give the patient shots to prevent tetanus, both active and passive vaccines, since John’s immunization status was unknown.
Upon completion of the transfusion, Luke and Sarah scrubbed in for surgery. He was amazed at how quickly she picked up sterile technique. He explained to her that John’s left fourth and fifth fingers would have to be amputated, since gangrene was already setting in. He quickly added that John would still have a functional hand since the thumb, index, and middle fingers were not badly injured.
He prepped the area, then injected the area of incision with local anesthetic before proceeding with surgery, which went well and quickly. Then he turned his attention to the badly lacerated left leg. He debrided and cleaned the wounds, but did not try to suture them since they were about three days old. He did apply sterile Vaseline gauze, and a dry sterile dressing.
He had Sarah clean the multiple bites and claw marks on the face, and then apply more sulfa powder and dry sterile dressings. The wounds were numerous and would leave him scarred for life, but they were fortunately not major or life-threatening.
Luke said to him, "You will carry these scars all your life, but they will show all who see you, that you were a brave young man, who survived a terrible encounter with a polar bear, one of the most ferocious beasts alive!"
John replied, "Luta, I can never repay you for all you have done for me. And you gave me the greatest honor of all by giving me your own blood, and thus making me your blood brother!"
Luke gave Sgt. Redd post-op orders, including penicillin injections, since the patient had some fever, and there was redness around the bites on the face, suggesting infection.
Luke urged Sarah to get some rest, but she insisted on staying with her brother, at least until he went to sleep.
As he left the aid station, Luke met the constable, who told him that the Eskimo hunters had returned. They had found and killed the wounded polar bear, and said he was the largest they had ever seen. Unfortunately, they had been unable to find any trace of Sarah’s father. And so the wailing of the women increased in Rebecca’s tent.
Updated: August 2, 2002