Margaret Haffner - Snowblind

‘Wouldn’t it be more sensible to test in the winter?’ asked Simon.

‘We’re going to be doing that too,’ Fernald replied. ‘Another popular idea. But manœuvring in summer isn’t all that easy either—no roads, lots of fog, hills, cliffs, sand and gravel, deep coastal indentations to cross, not to mention polar bears, wolves, and musk oxen.’

‘It sounds challenging,’ Simon commented, through his mouthful of bacon.

‘Just getting all the stuff here was half the battle!’ Fernald declared with feeling. ‘Even now, weeks into the exercise, we’re still bringing up odds and ends.’

Simon’s thoughts went back to the tank which had added such discomfort to his flight the day before. Was it an odd or an end? ‘Logistical problems, eh?’ he remarked with sympathy.

Fernald snorted. ‘You know what our biggest problem is? The weather at this godforsaken airport! The place is fogged in like it was Newfoundland. Every flight has to be postponed three or four times.’ Colonel Fernald stared morosely at the series of wet rings his coffee mug had made on the white surface of the mess table.

‘We got in OK yesterday,’ Simon reminded him.

‘You were damn lucky. But I’ll bet we can’t get you to Polar Bear Pass today. Didn’t you notice the fog rolling in?’

‘Can’t say that I did,’ Simon replied. ‘The sun was shining when I came across.’

Colonel Fernald tapped the table with his coffee spoon and shifted in his chair. He cleared his throat. ‘Hollingford … I’ve heard you’ve had a little trouble recently.’

Simon sighed. He’d been foolish to think he could escape his problems by running away. ‘A drug-dealer claims I beat him up when I arrested him.’

Fernald stopped tapping the spoon and looked Simon straight in the eye. ‘Did you?’

Simon shrugged. ‘I hit him. He had a knife and was planning to use it.’

‘The charges against the man were dropped. And no knife was found.’

‘You’ve been well briefed.’ Simon felt a nerve jumping in his cheek and clenched his teeth.

‘I like to know the people I’m responsible for. And I don’t want any trouble.’ Colonel Fernald hadn’t raised his voice but a warning had been uttered nevertheless.

‘Neither do I.’

‘Good. We understand each other.’ Fernald pushed himself away from the table, shoved his tray of dirty dishes into the rack and headed for the door. Simon saw him nod briefly at Tony and Anne who were on their way in.

Anne got through the food line first and came to sit beside Simon. Tony frowned but followed her. His brooding presence limited the conversation to dull platitudes.

Simon wolfed down the rest of his breakfast. ‘Think I’ll go have a look around,’ he said, pushing back his chair.

‘Mind if I join you?’ Anne popped up too.

‘Not at all.’ Simon hid his surprise as he waited for her to collect her things. Tony, barely into his heaping plateful, frowned ominously, but Anne ignored him.

Once they left the mess tent, Anne took the lead, proceeding down the slight grade to the left. The sunlight, so bright when Simon got up, was watery now and an iridescent halo circled all the lights. They walked in silence until they cleared the huddle of khaki and grey tents and approached the edge of a long, narrow bay. Across a hundred metres of water, the opposite shore wavered indistinctly in the gathering mist. Like a watercolour in muted tones of blue and grey, its outlines blurred. The water itself, an incredible grey-blue, was dotted with crazily shaped splashes of white. Ice.

‘Look!’ Anne pointed to an ice sculpture to their left, close to shore. ‘A cowboy hat.’

‘And an eagle’s head.’ He indicated a much larger formation, farther out in the bay. ‘This is better than cloud-watching.’ Along the shore to his right another ice buttress intruded on to the shore. Its silhouette reminded him of an old, bad-tempered man. The smile faded from his face. How was Duncan managing their father? Simon hadn’t been away from home for more than three or four days in years. Dad had become so hard to handle …

The raucous cry of a gull brought Simon back to Cornwallis Island and Anne. Forget the old man, he told himself. Have fun for once. He directed his attention to the other shore. Hills, low and rolling, ranged at right-angles to the grey and barren coastline. Between the two largest peaks the valley was white with ice and unmelted snow—a mini glacier ending at the sea. With the hazy sky, the grey hills, the white ice and the grey-blue water, the effect was unreal and dreamlike.

The dream had a musical score, too, a wild, disembodied wail which gradually penetrated Simon’s consciousness.

‘Huskies. In the Inuit village around the headland,’ Anne explained.

Simon looked around. Although the army encampment was still enshrouded in mist, the higher land beyond was momentarily visible through a break in the fog. Endless hills of stones disappeared into the mist. Even the hardy arctic plants had given up on the place, leaving the field to the never-ending gravel. And the grey fog was the same depressing colour as the landscape. ‘Why would anyone live here?’ he wondered aloud.

‘The Inuit didn’t pick this spot themselves. They were relocated from northern Quebec to make way for the James Bay hydro project.’

‘It sounds like a government idea.’

Anne took his arm. ‘Don’t look so glum. Polar Bear Pass, where we’re going, is nothing like this. It’s paradise in comparison.’

‘I’ll believe that when I see it,’ Simon replied as they started back. ‘Are you looking forward to this expedition?’

‘You bet! My specialty’s arctic plankton. It’s a little difficult to study that subject at good ol’ Bellwood U.’

‘Do you come north often?’

‘Every year, money permitting. We were at Polar Bear Pass on Bathurst Island last year too.’ Anne kicked a pile of gravel with her booted foot. ‘I go where others are going—to sponge transportation, food and lodging.’

‘Do you think we’ll get there today?’ Simon asked, remembering the Colonel’s gloomy forecast.

Anne studied the sky. ‘Maybe. Colonel Fernald told us to be packed and ready to go by ten-thirty this morning.’ She laughed. ‘I feel for the guy—he didn’t really want to see us again, you know. Not after last year.’

‘What happened?’

Anne looked at him, her head cocked to one side. ‘Your relative—the one who fixed you up for this gig—didn’t tell you?’

Simon shook his head. Another score to settle with Sylvester?

‘One of our group, Phillip Loew, got lost last time,’ Anne explained. ‘We never found him.’

Simon halted in his tracks. ‘You mean he just vanished?’

‘Not exactly.’ She ran her fingers through her hair and then shook it back into place. ‘It was late in the year … end of September … and we had a blizzard. Phillip never made it back to camp. The army, the RCMP, everybody looked for him but we never found him. Must’ve frozen to death.’

Simon gave a low whistle. ‘No wonder Sylvester forgot to mention it. He knows I’m allergic to dead bodies.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Thousands of square miles of nothing and I have to head for the place with the corpse.’ A busman’s holiday for sure.

They approached the camp where a bustle of activity surrounded two helicopters. Under the watchful eye of Warrant Officer Beaulieu, the other members of the expedition were cramming the mountains of gear into these machines. Tony glared at his wife, who stiffened momentarily but turned away without saying anything. She and Simon pitched in as they all scrambled to be ready for the first signs of the fog thinning.

CHAPTER 2