The Last Wilderness Read Online Free PDF

clamour of their wings and their harsh cries.
    Kallik paused to watch as the flock formed into a ragged wedge-shape and flew off across the open ground. Her excitement rose as her gaze followed them and she saw the edge of the ocean, the bluewaves stretching to the horizon where she could see the tempting shimmer of ice.
    ‘Come on!’ she called to Lusa and Ujurak. ‘It’s not far now!’
    She quickened her pace until she was bounding along, with her friends panting after her, splashing through the river’s wandering channels. Mounds of tough, springy grass grew up to the water’s edge, delicate wild flowers dancing among them. High in the pale sky, a golden eagle hovered.
    The light strengthened as the sun rose, turning the surface of the water to dazzling silver. The darkly forested slopes were far behind them now, and Kallik shivered with anticipation at the cries of seabirds coming from up ahead. As the river neared the ocean, she left the bank and struck across the shore at an angle until she could stand at the very edge, with seawater lapping at her paws. The air was laden with the scents of ice and fish.
    ‘Home . . .’ she whispered.
    Narrowing her eyes, Kallik peered at the ice in the distance. Its frosty glimmer merged with the haze at the bottom of the sky.
Can I swim out to it yet?
she wondered.
It seems very far away
. . .
    ‘Kallik . . .’ Lusa said nervously behind her.
    Kallik turned her head to see Lusa and Ujurak backing away, staring at something further along the shore. Following their gaze, she spotted another white bear with two half-grown cubs, trundling along the shoreline towards them. For a moment a pang of sorrow stabbed at her belly.
That should have been Nisa and Taqqiq and me
. . .
    Lusa and Ujurak, wary of a strange bear so much bigger than they were, scurried to take shelter behind a nearby thornbush, but Kallik stayed where she was until the she-bear and her cubs came up to her. ‘Greetings,’ she said, dipping her head respectfully to the mother bear. ‘Are you going on to the ice?’
    The she-bear’s eyes widened in shock as she gazed at Kallik. ‘You’re so thin, young one!’ she exclaimed. ‘Where have you come from?’
    ‘From another sea, a long way away,’ Kallik replied. ‘The ice melted there, so I crossed the land to Great Bear Lake, and then to here. I was looking for the Place of Everlasting Ice.’
    ‘You have come so far!’ The mother bear breathed out the words in amazement, while her two cubsstared at Kallik as if she were Silaluk herself, come down from the sky. ‘I’ve only ever met one other bear who made that journey from the other Frozen Sea. Her name was Siqiniq; she was very wise.’
    ‘I know Siqiniq!’ Kallik exclaimed joyfully. ‘I met her at Great Bear Lake. She was my friend.’
    The mother bear dipped her head. ‘I’m glad to hear Siqiniq still lives. I was only a cub when I met her, but I’ve never forgotten her. How did you manage the journey?’ she went on. ‘So many skylengths, and alone!’
    ‘I wasn’t alone,’ Kallik replied. ‘Not all the way. I had friends with me.’ She pointed with her snout toward Ujurak and Lusa, who were peering out anxiously from behind the thornbush.
    The she-bear flinched, instinctively stepping between them and her cubs, who huddled behind their mother. ‘A brown bear and a black bear?’ she growled. ‘What are they doing so close to the sea? Those kinds don’t often come down to the shore.’
    ‘They won’t try to hurt you, or your cubs,’ Kallik assured her. ‘They’re just waiting for me and they’ve helped me come all this way. But now I think my journey’s at an end.’ She turned again to gaze out tosea. ‘I’ve found what I was searching for. The Place of Everlasting Ice.’
    Was the ice closer than when she had first seen it? Kallik wasn’t sure, but her longing to swim out to it, to be part of that cold, white world again, was so strong that she could taste it. ‘Are you