‘But . . . but where are the plains?’ Ujurak stammered. ‘Where are the mountains?’

‘Don’t worry, they’re still there,’ Janet assured him. ‘If you look out the other way, you’ll see nothing but mountains.’ When Ujurak didn’t respond, she added, ‘I come from Chicago, and that’s a much bigger place than this. Everywhere around here is really unspoiled, except for the oil field. And the oil has done so much good: it’s brought schools and hospitals and better jobs for everyone.’

Ujurak looked down at his fingers; there was still a smear of the black sticky stuff with the foul smell. Are there really whole denning places built just to dig oil out of the ground?

He remembered the words of Tiinchuu the healer, back in Arctic Village. Those who would rip the heart out of the earth for their own profit . . . The hairs rose on the back of Ujurak’s neck, and he felt sick.

‘Look, there’s the oil-pumping tower.’ Janet pointed out of the window. ‘And there are the pipelines carrying the oil away to where it can be used.’

Ujurak stared. ‘What’s that flame?’ he asked. ‘Is the tower on fire?’

The nurse laughed. ‘No, it’s meant to do that. It’s burning off the gases that we don’t want.’

‘And where does the oil go?’ Ujurak said. Those pipes were huge, and there were so many of them. There must be a lot of oil to fill them.

‘Oh . . . some to factories, some to ports to be loaded on to ships. But that’s enough of that,’ the nurse added, pulling the pelt closed again and guiding Ujurak back to bed. ‘It’s time you got some rest.’

‘Who are the men who brought me here?’ Ujurak whispered as she tucked the blankets in.

‘Important men,’ Janet replied. ‘They work for the government and the oil company.’

‘They want to take oil from the land belonging to the caribou people.’

Janet nodded, frowning slightly as she looked down at him. ‘These are bad times,’ she said at last. ‘Poor mother nature is going to suffer. But we do need oil from somewhere.’

She raised a hand to silence Ujurak as he opened his mouth to ask another question. ‘Look, I’ll show you something. We’ll use your bed as a map.’

‘What’s a map?’

‘Just look.’ Janet folded back the blue blanket that lay on top of Ujurak’s bed, revealing the sheet below. ‘Imagine this is the ocean,’ she said, patting the blanket. ‘And we’ll ruffle up the sheet just here, to make the mountains.’ Picking up purple-Toklo, she plopped him down at the edge of the blanket. ‘And here’s the oil field!’

Ujurak put his head on one side, imagining he was a bird, flying above the land and the sea. ‘I get it!’

‘There are oil fields out on the ice too,’ Janet added, pointing to a spot on the ocean-blanket.