Tinnik Season

I’ve been sitting at our table, pulling stems off tinnik berries, pouring small handfuls out of my palm into jars of rendered bear fat. I have meat to dry and tons of other work to do, but I don’t want to do any of it and can’t take my hands off these beautiful berries.

Outside, it’s gray and windy, rain slopping down, melting the ice that has formed across the lagoon. Inside my head is pretty much all gray, too. I’m grumpy and unsettled, restless as hell, swearing at everything. Beside me, this godforsaken iPhone is no substitute for anything.

I knew I wasn’t done with the tundra when I came downriver; I’d had way too few days being with caribou. I’d waited a month and got lonely for them, hungry for them—a strange combination, I know, but what can I say? For some of us tundra offspring, these animals are both meals and lifelong companions.

It’s never easy to let go of summer and fall, all that