Pretty much the right direction? Joe felt an immediate stab of anxiety. He could see with his own eyes that the stream wound back and forth between the trees. If they followed the stream then they wouldn’t be heading due east any more!

  He tried to make himself calm down.

  Okay, they were changing direction. But there would still be other clues.

  They walked for a few minutes more, until the trees ran out. There were a few metres of clear ground, and then the stream ran right over a cliff.

  The cliff didn’t look high, Joe thought. Four or five metres. Still a bit too far to jump.

  He started to walk forward, to see exactly how high the cliff was. Bear put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Careful. We can’t get too close. Do you see the way the snow is piled up along the edge? I’ll bet you it’s overhanging the rock-face. It will collapse if we stand on it – and it could fall on us if we tried to climb down.”

  Joe felt his spirits plummet. He looked back at their footprints, the way they had come.

  “So … do we have to find another way?”

  7

  SUNNY SIDE UP

  The one place the snow didn’t overhang was the waterfall itself. Bear carefully followed the frozen stream to the edge and peered down. Then he smiled back at Joe.

  “This is our way down.”

  He stepped back, and took a rope and a small axe from his rucksack. Joe couldn’t see anything they could fix the rope to. The trees were too far away.

  Bear took the axe and bashed a hole into the ice itself. Then he bashed another, about a metre further on.

  Bear doubled the rope up into two parallel strands, and pushed the loop that joined them in through the top hole. He fished it out of the bottom one and kept pulling, until the two doubled-up pieces on either side of the holes were about the same length. Now he had four strands of rope in his hand, side by side – two going into one hole, two coming out of the other.

  Joe started to understand.

  “Now it’s doubled up,” he said, “so you just have to pull on one end and it will all come down after us.”

  Bear nodded.

  “A rope’s far too valuable to just abandon. And if we did it with just one length then our weight might make it cut through the ice so it won’t hold us – but two strands should pad it out. I need to go first, to double-check that it’s safe. Will you be okay coming down after me?”

  Joe smiled.

  “I get confused about left and right, but I think I can do straight down!”

  Bear laughed.

  “Brilliant! Let’s go, then.”

  First, they threw Bear’s rucksack and Joe’s reindeer leg sling down the cliff ahead of them.

  “It makes us both slightly lighter, and nothing’s going to break,” Bear said. Then he took the four strands of rope in his hands and walked backwards over the fall.

  “There are rocks sticking out through the ice,” he called up, “so double-check there are plenty of footholds for you. Just never let go of the rope with one hand until you’re holding it firm with the other. And only move one foot at a time.”

  A couple of minutes later, it was Joe’s turn.

  Joe let himself down, step by step, foothold to foothold. The ice creaked and groaned. He could hear the water trickling, and see it, a few centimetres in front of him, through the ice. The rope strands were taut with the strain of his weight. It was a relief when his feet finally touched the ground.

  Bear pulled on one end of the doubled-up rope. The other end shot upwards. A few seconds later, the whole rope dropped down at their feet. Bear coiled it up so that it could go back in his rucksack.

  While he did that, Joe looked around. He fought back a stab of worry. Did the stream still go the same direction as up above? He wasn’t sure it did. So, how would they know which way to head?

  Joe suddenly realised he had one massive clue to the direction they should take, right at his feet.

  “We’re heading for a lake, right?” he said. “And this stream must go somewhere …”

  Bear smiled, and nodded.

  “You’re right, Joe. This stream almost certainly goes into the lake. All the watercourses around here will end up in it.”

  “So if we follow it, we’ll get there!” Joe said happily. It didn’t matter that the stream twisted and turned. If they followed it then they were absolutely guaranteed to get wherever it was going.

  Soon the stream was flowing through a valley that wound and wiggled along. The valley sides were covered with bushes and small trees that stuck up out of the snow. Their stalks and twigs were dark and bare. But Joe noticed one side of the valley was darker than the other, because there were more bushes there. He bounced a few explanations around in his head. He could think of one straight away.

  “Is this the side that faces south?” he asked eventually. Joe pointed at the side with more bushes.

  Bear nodded, with a smile.

  “That’s right, buddy. And the tree branches are longer, too. It’s the side that gets more sun, so the plants get more energy. Did you spot that? You’re turning into such a great navigator!”

  Joe spent the rest of the trek gazing around him, trying to take in more clues.

  He was the one moving. Nature stayed still. The clues didn’t shift around when he wasn’t looking. He could trust the world to stay where it was.

  He could do this!

  Just as Joe was feeling confident, the valley ran out. The trees stopped, and the smooth surface of the frozen stream ran into a much wider, smooth surface of ice.

  The lake! The ice stretched away in every direction. There had to be a mile of it or more, before it reached the trees on the other side. Joe smiled to himself. They had walked for hours – most of the day and the sky was turning red as the sun set. He’d learned to navigate and now they were right where Bear had expected them to be.

  But the good feeling only lasted a second. Hadn’t Bear said they were heading for a hunting lodge?

  Joe looked around.

  There was no sign of any kind of building. Just trees, and snow, and more trees, and more snow. All that careful navigating, Joe moaned to himself, and they’d still reached the wrong bit?

  “This is the lake, isn’t it?” he asked, just to be sure.

  Bear nodded.

  “We’re absolutely where we want to be, Joe,” he said. “Come over here.”

  Joe trudged after Bear and tried to feel as cheerful as Bear sounded. Okay, it was the right lake. But where was the lodge, then?

  That was when he noticed that a pile of snow by the trees had a metal chimney sticking out of it.

  8

  ICE AND FIRE

  The chimney was the only clue. The rest of the lodge was just a smooth mound of snow.

  “The door probably faces the lake,” Bear said, “so we’ll dig it out on this side.”

  He and Joe dug into the snow, like when they had made the midday trench, scooping out large chunks until they were both covered with white powder. A wooden wall slowly appeared, with a door, and a window of dirty, cloudy plastic.

  “We’ll leave the rest of the snow for insulation,” Bear said, and pushed the door open. The inside was just as cold as out, but at least it was snow-free. The lodge was one big room. In the dim light, Joe saw a table and some shelves, with bits and pieces on them. There was a metal stove, a pile of sticks and logs and a couple of bunks.

  Bear went straight to the stove. On the shelves next to it there was a box of matches, and an old newspaper left by a previous explorer. The pages were yellow with age, and bone dry. Bear passed it to Joe.

  “Joe, please could you tear up about a quarter of the pages? We don’t want to waste the whole thing. Crumple them up into little balls.”

  While Joe did that, Bear grabbed a couple of armfuls of wood and built up a pile inside the stove. First, the paper that Joe had crumpled, then smaller bits of wood on top of it, then a couple of logs on top of that. Once it was all in, he set fire to the paper with the box of matches. Yellow flame was spreading through the paper as Bear shut the metal door.

  “We’ll keep it fed while we’re here, and we’ll soon be warm and toasty!” he said. “And we can cook us some more reindeer, too.”

  They drank melted snow, and fried some strips of reindeer meat in a metal pan on top of the stove. It tasted even better than their lunch. By now, the lodge felt as warm as Joe’s tent back at Camp. They left the rest of the leg outside, in nature’s freezer.

  “Reindeer’s fine,” Bear said, as they washed it down with more pine-needle tea, “but we could do with some fish for breakfast.”

  “Tasty!” Joe agreed.

  “So, we’re going to need some things. There’s a ball of string in the rucksack, if you can bring that. We’ll be building another fire out on the ice, so we’ll take these bits of kindling and wood here, and replace them for other explorers before we leave tomorrow.”

  “Will the ice hold our weight?” Joe asked as they went outside. Once he had tried to stand on a frozen fish pond back home. He had gone straight through and got soaked. Out here, the result would be a lot worse. “The ice on the stream looked quite thin.”

  Bear smiled as he walked onto the ice and stamped his foot.

  “The stream was moving, so it didn’t freeze. Still water, in this temperature, will be fine. It needs to be at least five centimetres thick to hold your weight, but this will be more than that. If you’re ever unsure, a good way is to give it a hard prod with your stick, three times. If it doesn’t go through after that, it’ll be okay.”

  Bear and Joe went out onto the ice for about fifty metres, with their arms full of sticks and logs and bits of birch bark. Joe went back to get a second load of wood – a pile of spruce branches which Bear had pointed out – while Bear started to cut a hole in the ice.

  By the time Joe got back, Bear had used the axe and his knife to cut a hole in the ice as wide as a football. As Bear had promised, the ice was thick – Joe guessed ten centimetres or more – and the water was dark.

  “Could you pass me some string, please?” Bear said. He cut off a length about a metre long. Then he snapped a small twig off one of their bits of wood, about half the length of Joe’s little finger. With his knife, he cut away the bark and sharpened the two ends to points.

  “Hold this, please?”

  Joe held the bit of wood while Bear tied the end of the string around its middle.

  “This is called a gorge hook,” Bear said as he worked. He took the wood and the string, and held them so they were parallel. Then he pushed the pointed wood into a bit of reindeer meat so that one end came out of the other side.

  “The fish comes along for a nibble, and gets the bait. But the bait is holding the hook parallel to the string. Without the bait, the hook swings around and catches in the fish’s mouth, so it can’t get free,” Bear explained. “Now, the last thing we do is build a fire.”

  Bear and Joe made a pile of the sticks and bits of wood they had brought, next to the hole. It started with lots of thin twigs and fragments of wood. On top, Bear put all the bits of birch bark.

  “While I get this going, could you gather up those spruce branches into a bundle?” Bear said. “We want all the leafy ends packed together. You’ll see why.”

  Joe collected as much wood as he could while Bear set the fire alight. The flame took over the pile as the oils in the bark caught fire, crackling its way through the twigs and licking up against the bark bits. Soon, orange flame rose cheerfully up into the sky.

  Joe thought that maybe the fire was for them, to keep them warm while they waited for a fish to bite. But that seemed a lot of effort to go to, when they could just wait in their nice, warm lodge. He tried to think of non-obvious reasons, and got one.

  “I suppose this attracts them?” he said. Joe imagined the glow of the flame from a fish’s point of view, through the ice. Bear nodded.

  “It’s the brightest thing around, including underwater. They’ll come to investigate, and find a nice bit of reindeer meat waiting for them.”

  Bear tied the string onto a stick, which he laid across the hole. The hook and bait disappeared into the water.

  “And now the spruce branches …” he said.

  They packed the leafy ends of the branches into the hole around the fishing line. The branches pressed against each other, and against the side of the hole, so they stayed in place.

  “And that stops the hole freezing over,” Bear said. “You wouldn’t believe how many ice-fishing trips have been wasted because people forgot to do that! Now, fish won’t be the only creatures attracted to the fire. There are bears and wolves out here – so we should get back indoors. A night in the warm, and tomorrow we should reach the coast!”

  9

  ONE LITTLE FISHY

  Daylight crept in through the grimy window. Joe stirred and stretched himself awake beneath the warm woollen blankets.

  In the other bunk across the room, Bear was still asleep.

  Joe’s stomach growled. It reminded him of their plans for breakfast. Had they caught a fish?

  It would be be cool to go and see.

  He pulled his outdoor gear back on, and laced up his boots. There was a pencil stub on the table. Joe scrawled a quick note on one of the bits of paper: ‘going to check fish’. Bear had said they were a team, and it felt like something a team member would do.

  Joe was also thirsty. They could do with more water. There was an old metal water bottle with a leather strap on the shelf by the door, left by some other user of the lodge. Joe decided to fill it up with snow to melt. He slung it over his shoulder, pulled his hood up, and stepped outside.

  He had forgotten exactly how cold it was outside until he felt it bite into his exposed face. He gasped, and the air went into his lungs too. Man, that was cold!

  Joe was glad he still had warm air inside his clothes and against his skin. He was well wrapped up in good Arctic clothing, and protected from the wind.

  First things first. Joe scooped snow into the water bottle, and stuck it inside his coat, quickly, so as not to let the warmth out.

  Then he walked down to the edge of the lake.

  That bit was easy. All he had to do was follow yesterday’s footprints. Snow had drifted during the night and the footprints were faint, but they were still visible.

  Then Joe looked out over the lake.

  He couldn’t see the other side. In fact, it was hard to tell how far he could see. A white mist hung over the ice. There was nothing firm to look at.

  Joe stood and stared. He couldn’t see any footprints, or the fishing hole. Not even the fire next to it. Joe knew it would have burnt out long ago, but there should still be a pile of burnt wood and ashes.

  All he could see was white, directionless mist. If Joe wanted fish for breakfast, he’d have to go into the mist.

  Joe almost turned back. But then he looked down at the ice.

  Sastrugi!

  He hadn’t thought to look for them the night before. He had just walked with Bear in a straight line onto the ice, with his arms full of wood. This morning, he noticed that the wind-blown patterns ran diagonally across the ice. Now Joe knew he could do this. He had his direction, from their footprints on land. If he kept the sastrugi like that, diagonal, then he would be going in a straight line.

  Joe started walking.

  The white mist slowly grew thick around him. Very soon, Joe couldn’t see anything ahead – or behind him, either. The land and the trees had vanished into the white blur.

  But he could see the sastrugi.

  “Just keep walking,” he muttered. “Just keep walking …”

  Joe kept the sastrugi diagonal, and kept going.

  A grey spot appeared in the mist. Dead ahead. Joe’s heart started to beat faster.

  And then he was standing by a pile of ashes, next to a hole in the ice stuffed with spruce branches. The fire had melted a small dip in the ice, but the ice was too thick for it to go all the way through.

  “Yes!” Joe punched the air.

  The spruce branches had kept the hole open during the freezing night. Joe pushed them apart to get at the fishing stick with the line attached to it. The line vanished into the water. Joe tugged it between thumb and forefinger. It felt like there was a weight on the other end. Joe felt the excitement growing inside him. He gave the line another tug.

  There was a sudden yank on the other end and the line was pulled out of his fingers. Only the fact that it was tied to the stick stopped it from disappearing into the water.

  “We’ve caught a fish! Go us!” Joe exclaimed.

  He gave the line another tug, and this time he held onto it. He could feel the fish pulling against it, straining …

  Suddenly, he realised what might happen. If he just kept yanking on the line, the fish would keep fighting back and the line would snap. The fish would get away and all that work would have been for nothing.

  Joe gently let the line back into the water. That was close. Okay, so he didn’t know what to do next. But Bear would. Now Joe just had to go and get him.

  Joe knew that all he had to do was turn round and follow his footprints …

  Or did he?

  When he’d got to the hole he’d walked around it. The ground was a blur of footprints. And the white mist worked both ways. You couldn’t see where you were going – or where you had come from, either.

  If he got this wrong, then he could spend the rest of his life walking round and round in circles on the lake …

  “Calm down, Joe,” he muttered to himself. Whichever direction he went, he would come to land eventually. It wasn’t going to move.

  And he still had the sastrugi. They had guided him here, they could guide him back.

  Joe made himself remember how the fire and the hole had been when he first saw them. He walked around, without taking his eyes off them, until they were in the same places again. Fire there. Hole there. Sastrugi going that way. So, he must have his back to the way he had come. Joe turned around on the spot, exactly half a circle. He made a note of which way the sastrugi were going now, and started walking.

 

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