The Arctic Tern can live 34 years; imagines a
cabin out Makkovik way, far off; imagines its
trapping line down the bay, large mornings,
tracks from the snow machine tows a baby blue
komatik behind, the tangy smell of gasoline
thick in the windburn; wants to go down to
Suzie’s store for a case of Bud or the like, the
story of its father piloting in young with supplies,
people, how she’d always save him a six pack if
depleted, he a beloved figure here of making
something of himself, of leaving; watches the
Northern Ranger dock first this spring and lift
skids to the wharf, the Bigland grocery down
simply to sugar and flour, deep-freezes near
empty hard season, families down at the dock
getting their skidoos back from Frenchie’s in
Goose Bay repaired; hears teams of dogs tied
up howling just over the hill past the garbage
barrel with Stewie from Family Guy painted on
it, Tapout t-shirts, a kid with a Monster Energy
hat whips by on a four wheeler which of these
buildings was the residential school?; sees
scattered the white siding typical of the
Moravians evangelical since 1771 their steeples
worn subtly now how in 1956 Inuit of Nutak and
Hebron forced by government to settle in
Makkovik, Hebron the home of the Ulrikab
family in European zoos the 1880s and
whooping cough, influenza, smallpox,
tuberculosis, a desperate shortage of firewood
those barrens rich in natural beauty—; wants or
to walk the boardwalk down the bay in Rigolet
every morning early summer yes, Labrador tea
blooming with the yarrow flowers,
crackerberries, foxberries, currants, a neighbour
back from Eskimo Island says bakeapples a
little sour yet, flies biting he says lord jesus;
sees minke whales breaching every 30 seconds
or so, spraying always on the third before a
longer deeper dive it learned, backs high-
arched, their smaller dorsal shaped like old
Mokami mountain on Lake Melville where cell
phone reception sparks up, folks out on the
decks of the Ranger making calls, Instagram
again; was buddies with the guy who creates
those Labrador Inuit memes gone viral in the
north, worked with him on the Ranger for a
season, used to put a couple beers back in his
cabin off watch for the night, the swell toward
Cape Harrison starting up again, farthest out
they’d go unexposed the ship rolls deeply,
bulkheads creaking, twisting, the coveralls hung
on the back of the door angling out with each
deeper, the ship here at this point in time
becoming less simple steel, more act of faith;
has a feeling resembling faith like a howl over
the hill a cabin lit, a fox’s long finish on its line,
far off; dies.

Mike Chaulk lives in Guelph, ON where he drives trucks full of beer for a living. His work has appeared in Best Canadian Poetry in English 2018, The Malahat Review, PRISM: international, and filling Station, among other places. He spends a good amount of time walking with his dog in the woods.

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