* * *
After having ensured that the communications station, where I was the chief operator, would not fall apart during my absence, I took a ten-day leave. Early on a clear April morning, amidst the ceremonies and panoply of barking dogs, runny-nosed children, urgings to have one more cup of tea, and endless good-byes, the Moggs and I, along with six hunters and assorted members of their families, scrambled into a large, outboard-powered oomiak, or “many people” skin boat, at the water’s edge of Nome’s Norton Sound. With much grunting and laughing, we pushed out far enough for small oars to be used. Paul began slowly steering us with the stubby rudder through the shore ice toward open water. The low-lying hills back of town disappeared in the distant haze and the shoreline faded. Until the noise of the outboard drowned it out, I could hear the faint chorus of farewells and good wishes being shouted by those left behind.
