Baffin Island: Day 12

Word Count: 84,010

Summary of Events:

Yukon and Kyle stayed up late talking about Canadian geography. The next morning Yukon woke up to the smell of cooking rabbit as Ben finally succeeded in catching one, to everyone's joy. Subsequently reinvigorated, they set out for another day of walking during which they spent a lot of time talking about advancing JT's career. Yukon was woken by the howling of wolves and couldn't help but feel uneasy . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

"The howls sounded like they were close by, and there was something else about them, something more haunting and cold about them. Yukon didn't know what it was, but he felt like there were ominous portents of danger in their calls as they rallied together.

For all he knew the wolves could be calling each other together into a big hunting pack to come after them; the wolves could've been following them for some time, and were wanting to take them down for food or something.

Maybe it was hunger he heard in their voices that made them seem more haunting and cold, more dangerous. Maybe the wolves were starving like they had been, and were seeking to take them down because they were big and meaty.

That thought made Yukon uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. But not as uncomfortable as the thought that maybe, just maybe, his imitation howls two days ago had actually encouraged the wolves to start heading in their direction, even though he'd been hungry at the time.

The wolves could possibly have been able to tell he was a human imitating them, and if they had, maybe they'd decided to rally together in an effort to take him down and eat him, as well as any others in his company — whom they would have assuredly heard and identified as non-wolves.

As much as he could pull off a good howl, Yukon wasn't sure what exactly he'd communicated by it. Wolves used howls to communicate all manner of different things, and that was part of the language that he didn't understand.

He knew they used them for rallying a group together to go hunting, and he was pretty sure that even news could be communicated by means of the howling, good or bad, and maybe even news of food, just based on the pitch of the howl, the duration, or how many undulations of the tone — to say nothing of any other possible differences that could communicate things.

Yukon hoped that his howling the other day hadn't attracted the wolves, and even if it hadn't, he hoped that the wolves hadn't picked up on their human scent at all, and that it was just coincidence and coincidence alone that had them seemingly being followed by the wolves wherever they went.

They were getting closer and closer to home. Yukon felt like they'd rounded a corner in their trip. They'd all been ready to give up, but they'd all dug in and found the strength to keep going, and now they were buoyed by food and the fact that they were only a week away from home, also, too, it seemed like they were ready to keep going with a renewed energy and vigour they'd lost rather early on in their trip.

He didn't want wolves to come and ruin that progress now, he didn't want wolves to come and demoralise the group. They were so close, but yet, in the same breath, they were also really far away."