I was out trapping. It was an escape from the excessively oppressive atmosphere of the Post. But as white men are not allowed to trap here, I was watching certain traps for an Eskimo. He had set them, and I used to go out to visit them. One day, taking advantage of the couple of hours of dusk that remained to us, I went off in the wind, a sack of bait slung across my chest in Eskimo fashion. It was one of those days when you look around and say to yourself, "Not too good, but It will do," and you chance it anyway. I was bound for a trap-line about half a mile from the Post. I reached it, reset two traps, stood up and looked round to make certain of my bearings. Behind me the wind was blowing harder. I was in a situation which makes people like me a bit nervous but In which also they say, invariably, "Just one more and I'll turn back." Already I was having trouble with the shavings of fish that constituted the bait. They would blow off the trap, and I would run after them to put them back where they belonged. I knew well enough that I was playing the fool, but I was stubborn, and I hummed a tune to let myself know that I was perfectly sure of being able to look after myself. I did turn back, though, and I came finally in sight of the cairn that marked my first trap. By this time the blow was stiff, I was worried, and I had stopped humming. I couldn't fool myself any longer. There was no comfort in this situation. I was fidgety, exasperated; and wherever I looked I saw snow-filled space and nothing else. I started to run, stumbled, panted as I ran, and then fell heavily, as if I had been tripped up. By the time I was on my feet again things looked really bad.
I got as far as the cairn and drew breath. Ahead of me, in the direction of the Post, was a bare patch of rock, and with my eyes riveted on it I went forward. I knew that if I took my eyes off it I should never in my life see it again. The thought bothered me. It is absurd, I said to myself, that a man's life should hang on a thing like this, on keeping his eyes glued to a black dot in a gray cloth. But I was less than half a mile from the Post, I knew where I was going, and in ten minutes all danger would be behind me.
It was ahead of me. Suddenly the snow was whirling round me, encircling me, and the whole landscape vanished.
I shouldn't have started to run. Running is the worst thing a man can do. It makes him perspire, and when he stops he freezes. But I ran nevertheless. I said to myself that my life was a matter of seconds, that each second was priceless, and that if I did not reach my objective immediately I was gone.
I ran back where I had come from. This is how men get lost, for they always arrive at a different point from that which they are running to. They think that they have spotted a landmark. It is on the right. But it is not on the right; it is not on the left; It is nowhere. Then they go round. and round in a circle, out of breath. Damn! There goes a glove! And it means that the hand -- under aneaxe -- will follow the glove. They stop, try to catch their breath, and feel that the end is near. Their attige, or inner coat, is frozen with sweat; and as they no longer know what to do, they do the maddest things. They strip to take off this coat of ice, and then freeze without it. They tramp backward and forward for two days in order not to freeze to death; and then they topple over. Not far from where I stood trembling, the grave of Luca was dug after he had been found gloveless and frozen stiff.
I did not want to become one of those men: it was too stupid. I wanted to be calm. But there were no landmarks. I had no notion