White people were so full of shit.

Anik took a quick drag from his Marlboro. He fell to his knees, then a hand landed in the wet snow with a smack.

Heart attack. Must’ve been.

He was dizzy, had a hard time lifting the cigarette to his mouth. A struggle.

Yet his mind was on fire.

So full of shit. They sent Army, Coast Guard, to the village on their schedule. My people lose teeth, Army man smiles.

It was the elder Nuniq that had the idea. The white people simply were not going to help. They built their cities, consumed the natural resources, burned up the sky, and took the whale from us. And then all the things that fed upon them. Nuniq understood our connection to the whale – and the things that fed upon them.

No more children. Simply stop having children.

Oh, the idea was not met well.

But it made sense to this one. Then that one. And so on until the village grasped the power in the idea.

His father was a toddler when the elder Nuniq died. Anik was the last Inutiq’a.

It took a generation of explanation. Then a generation of practice.

Here the Inutiq’a would pass into the Earth, far beneath the snow, beneath the tundra, into Earth herself.

No more starving. No more pain. Damn if Nuniq wasnt right.

The village would rot, then most likely pass into the sea.

Their history, their stories, the songs, the skills, washed into the waves, sifted into the thick misty white arcs over the waves, the gateway to eternity.

Anik gasped his final breath, like a seals bark.

The Marlboro burned to the filter between his dark fingers without a care.