All this took no time or thought. It was becoming nearly automatic for him – quick fire-circle of rocks, a mouse nest to make a spark to make a fire to make . . .

To make.

All of it without thinking. Wherever he was now became his home, was as familiar as if he had designed things for himself, had put this firewood just here, put this mouse nest just there . . .

Of course there were life surprises that were not always good.

Like a sickness that killed or a whirlpool to suck you down or a surprise of coming out of thick fog into a frenzy of jumping and feeding whales without a warning. But you faced those things as they came and either were successful or you went to Valhalla.

That simple.

You lived or you died.

And in between the two, if you kept your mind open and aware and listened and smelled and watched . . .

In between you learned.

Ice

He now entered into an apparently endless series of large bays with fewer small islands and only occasional forested inlets on the landward side.

A world of giants.

In his years of captivity on the ships, he had seen, known, many things that caused him to marvel. The ocean itself, the enormity of it, the way it never ended, never could end. He had been on deck one clear night sitting next to Old Carl and he looked up at all the stars and wondered aloud: ‘How many are there?’

Old Carl had laughed between puffs of smoke out of his clay pipe. ‘Can’t count them – you’d run out of numbers. Same as the sea. Can’t be measured. Too big. It just is, that’s all. The stars just are and the ocean just is . . . no numbers.’

And now these bays. Huge bodies of well-sheltered waters filled with animals so big they couldn’t be measured. There weren’t, he thought, enough numbers. He had camped for three days on the side of the first bay, where he had been captured by the whales jumping and feeding, and then moved along the shore north. He kept close, almost touching the land, and for the most part the whales stayed out in the open water, though they were still active and provided him with a show whenever he stopped to camp and rest.

He had run out of salmon so he stopped at an inlet with a stream and spear-dragged ten good-size silvers that he smoked. This was not a safe island, and while there was no bear scat, he was concerned that the smell from the drying racks might bring bears so he slept light and had the canoe ready to push off into water in moments. But this time none came and to add with the salmon he found a good stand of berries and ate until his belly was tight.

It was here that he met with the ghost of his mother.