Beautiful black-and-white markings, dorsal fins breaking the surface all around the canoe, they seemed to come out of nowhere and surround him. He could not exactly tell the number of them because they rolled under, back and forth, and beneath one another, but it was at least six, maybe eight of them. Some large – one he thought male, though he wasn’t sure, seemed huge, much longer than the canoe, with a large dorsal fin sticking straight up – some smaller, and possibly two or three young ones.

I should, he thought . . . I should be afraid of these killer whales. They could easily slap or ram the canoe and break it to pieces. He had seen them slap-throw small seals back and forth through the air at each other until the seal was clearly floppy in death. Several times he had watched them offshore near the camp playing so roughly with one another he could feel-hear the sudden blows from the beach.

And he somehow dream-remembered them playing with the canoe, shoving it this way and that, when he was sick. Obviously they had considered him and his canoe little more than a toy and if they had started to play rough with him . . .

He should be afraid. At least concerned.

Yet he was not. Something was distinctly not threatening about them, and even when two young ones came over and started to nose the canoe back and forth they did not seem to be very serious about it. Mildly curious. Playful. Were these the same ones that were with him when he was sick?

He was struck by how they looked. Almost stunningly beautiful. They shone black and white in the clear cold water with lines so clean and sharp they looked carved or drawn. Swimming without any obvious effort, sliding through the water next to the canoe, and he wasn’t sure whether he was keeping up with them or they were holding back to match his speed and remain with him. Even the big one seemed to stay near him, coming up to blow not a paddle’s length from the side of the canoe, blowing so that his warm spray that smelled sharply of fish came over Leif in a fine mist.

They were a family and the whole family stayed with him, or seemed to. Or perhaps he stayed with them.

However it was, he did not mind. He in fact thought of them as friends – knowing at the same time how that seemed a little ridiculous – yet came to understand and believe that they wouldn’t hurt him.

And yet.

Yet they worked around him and he remained among them, however it happened, until they curved into an inlet. There was such purpose in how they moved that it was evident to Leif that they had meant to come to this one place all along and he almost automatically – nudged by the young ones – followed them in.