There came a time when the Gwich’in and caribou became separated from each other, but they kept a part of each other’s hearts.
— Gwich’in Creation Story
The Caribou of North America, now considered to be the same species as the Reindeer of Europe and Asia, migrate over 250,000 km2 between their calving grounds on the coastal plains of Alaska, and their winter range in northern Yukon. This is the longest migration route of any land mammal on the planet.
— The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Animals
Best estimates put the Porcupine herd’s population at 90,000 to 100,000 animals, indicating a continued decline from 178,000 in 1989.
— “Porcupine Caribou Harvest Management Plan, 2010”
The tremendous drive that caribou feel to reach their traditional place of birth year after year suggests that these areas must have special attributes.
— George Calef, Caribou and the Barren-Lands
Introduction
Their odorous preorbital glands
are located medial
to the eye socket.
— “Caribou,” Wild Mammals of North America. Eds. George A. Feldhamer, Bruce C. Thompson, Joseph A. Chapman
Even in the scalpelled light
of a sickled moon,
they can find their way
back to the herd’s iris.
A fusion between calf and cow
dislocated by distance. But she,
openthroated and downwind, can see
the synchronized heartbeat once shared
as everything inside blooms out.
To breathe beside the young,
and inhale the double helix
of the fathers and the mothers
growing inside them; a family tree
blossoming in the blood,
pollen carried in the pulse.
The permafrost is a palimpsest
overwritten with ancestral movement,
scents like signatures scored into ice,
the calligraphy of the migration’s
sharp-hoofed curves.
Stretched beneath these winter nights,
arctic in their length, the smell
of seventy-five bodies trailing ribbons
of pine needle and wild rye,
splitting the blackness,
as the season’s first petals
will soon crack the frost.
‘Kar-ә-bōō, n.
The smallest of the human leg’s four tendons.
A brand of snow shovel union made in Waco, Texas.
An elderly female homosexual.
The last word of dialogue in The Da Vinci Code.
A punk band from Medicine Hat.
A speed bump in Saskatchewan.
The removal of a species from the endangered animals list for purely political reasons.
A brand of hat, once popular in Rhodesia.
The sugary resin at the bottom of a cup of coffee.
A miraculous result in a Nunavut provincial election.
A wet hand in a wool mitt.
The capital of Tarandus, Napoleon’s most northern province.
The Canadian code name...
