Word Count: 18,027
Summary of Events:
Yukon woke up before everyone else and found that his dog was missing; he successfully called her and discovered that she'd found a whale that had recently died, from which he harvested some meat for a meal. He and his friends then decided to have a kayak racing tournament to spend some of the time while they waited to see if their food would be brought to them, which didn't seem to be happening.
Excerpt of the Day:
"Yukon looked over at Alex and raised his eyebrows.
"Readysetgo!" Alex shouted before taking off.
"Not even fair!" Yukon shouted, starting of after him.
Alex only laughed.
Yukon flung his paddles as fast as he could go and quickly not only caught up to Alex, but passed him.
"Like you needed a fair start!" Alex complained.
Yukon laughed. "You're right! It probably would've only made you look worse!"
Alex swore. "I'm going to need to start going to the gym and trying to become the next Arnold Schwarzenegger!"
"I don't think that'll do anything for you!" Yukon called, turning around tight and starting back. "It has to work, not just look good!"
"Fine then!" Alex replied. "I'll kayak home and kayak all the rest of the summer and all winter!"
Yukon turned sharply to parallel the shore when his paddle struck sand and let himself just gently float.
After a few moments Alex joined him.
"There's a problem with your plan," Yukon said.
"And what's that?" Alex asked.
"Our route takes us overland, otherwise it would take us months to get back to Iqaluit," Yukon replied.
"We're not going to find much food overland," Alex said.
"There'll be rabbits," Yukon replied.
"Yeah, but what are we going to catch them with?" Alex asked. "The ground's too solid for pit traps, I didn't bring any of my live or clamp traps, and we can't really effectively build a snare either."
"Maybe Ulloriaq can catch them for us," Yukon replied. "She's faster than we are, and she's been intent on practising her hunting skills as it is."
"Will she catch them without eating them or infusing them with dog germs?" Alex asked.
"She got the bird when we arrived," Yukon replied.
"Yeah, but birds have longer necks than rabbits do," Alex replied.
"Good point," Yukon said. "I don't know. We may have to try for a seal or two the night before and see if we can carry some meat along with us for a couple of days."
"How long will the overland part take?" Alex asked.
"A good half the trip," Yukon replied.
"So we'll have a week and a half to two weeks on the coast and then the same overland?" Alex asked.
"About, yeah," Yukon replied. "If I recall correctly."
"Being as there's that whale, though, couldn't we just stay here and live off the whale for two weeks?" Alex asked.
"It isn't going to dip below freezing in the next two weeks," Yukon replied. "Do you really want to eat two week old whale meat? It's going to have rotted something terrible by then, and it'd probably be more likely to kill us than help us survive."
"I guess that's true," Alex said. "Especially being as we can't smoke any of it or anything like that."
"It's better to keep moving and keep finding fresh meat than to try and stay in one place and make use of the whale," Yukon said.
Alex sighed and swore. "It really seems like we're being forced to have to go home whether we want to or not.""
Pronunciation:
Ulloriaq: youlohreeack
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